3 Cranbury Residents, 3 Others Win Contest for "Safe Princeton" Campaign

Four Princeton High School students, plus one each from Montgomery High School and Community Park Elementary School, won a contest to name cartoons that will anchor a community-wide SAFE PRINCETON traffic safety education campaign scheduled for launch June 1.

At a ceremony on Friday, May 18 in Princeton High School, the six students were awarded a total of $1,100 in privately donated cash prizes by Borough Mayor Yina Moore and Township Deputy Mayor Liz Lempert.

The winners competed to name and write punch lines for cartoon characters drawn and contributed by Joy Chen, owner of JoyCards, Inc. Moore said that the cartoons will be used in publicity throughout the community during the coming months to help stigmatize some of the dangerous traffic behavior that has led to a 60 percent increase in pedestrian and bike accidents in the borough during the last three years. Lempert thanked the students “for lending us your creativity and sense of humor” for the campaign.  The winners are:

• Princeton High School students William Xu and Augustus Huang, both of Cranbury, each won $300 for coming up with a name and two punch lines for several cartoons.
• Princeton High School student Jeanna Cody of Cranbury, won $200 for two winning names.
• Princeton High School student Linda Bloom of Princeton, won $100 for a punch line, “It’s Nassau, not NASCAR,” that judges considered so good they asked Chen to produce a new drawing of drivers trying to beat red lights on Nassau Street.
• Montgomery High School student Rebecca Ravitz of Skillman, won $100 for her punch line, “Better to Show Up Late Than Not to Show Up At All,” which accompanies a character hurrying through traffic outside of a crosswalk just to get a cup of coffee.
• Community Park student Jake Renda of Princeton bested six high school contenders with his name for a motorist texting while driving.

Moore thanked Chen for donating her drawings to the campaign, R. J. Gleason for contributing photographic services, and Tom Florek, of the Educational Testing Service, for the SAFE PRINCETON video he filmed for use in the campaign. Lempert added her thanks to Liz Lien, information technology coordinator for Princeton’s public schools who developed the website for the contest, and citizens on the Borough’s Traffic and Transportation Committee, who organized and will manage the campaign.