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PEKIN (WEEK) - A Pekin teenager will have a piece of her artwork featured on one of the biggest stages - the U.S. Capitol Building.

Taylor Whitehall - a junior at Pekin Community High School - won the 2022 Congressional Art Competition with her submission, ‘The Last Goodbye’.

The piece is a re-creation of a photograph of Taylor and her stepfather, Gary, who passed away from complications with COVID-19 in late 2020.

“He was a great guy - he really was,” Whitehall said of her stepfather, who was an avid bowler and a diehard Chicago Cubs fan. “I have a hard time being proud of myself sometimes, but I’m definitely proud of this one.”

Taylor’s piece will hang in the cannon tunnel of the Capitol Building for congressmen and women to see on their way to the house floor.

Beneath the piece reads the words, “I Love You More”, which Whitehall said was something her stepfather often told his children.

“As a mother, the doors this could open for her are just amazing. The world is at her feet,” Taylor’s mother, Trisha Bush, said.

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