Uniontown students offer wounded soldiers Quilted Hugs

Hundreds of people filed through the City/County Community Center in Nevada on Saturday, for the annual Bushwhacker Quilt Guild Show. Dozens of quilts were displayed, including challenge quilt projects created by the guild's members, a collection of quilts for the Quilts of Valor program, which provides comforting quilts for wounded members of the military, and a special display of quilts created for the Quilted Hugs program, an effort initiated by the guild's own Ann Jones, which provides quilts symbolizing the comforts of home to those serving overseas.

What made the Quilted Hugs display doubly special is that the quilts displayed Saturday came from the hearts and hands of students in Uniontown, Jean Cook and her class at Uniontown High School created the quilts. Some even wrote messages for the recipient on the quilts and signed the quilts.

Another display showed some of the local efforts for which the guild frequently creates and donates quilts, such as Habitat for Humanity, the Children's Center and the Missouri State Highway Patrol, which gives the quilts to comfort those who are facing or have faced traumatic situations.

Challenge quilts are small, unique projects in which members used three colors -- shades beginning with the same letters as the member's initials.

Quilt show patrons voted on the challenge quilt projects and selected a viewer's choice honor. Challenge quilt winners were: First place, Beverly Ayers; second place, Erica Skouby; and third place, Diane Valentine. The viewer's choice honor went to Janie Swan of Independence, Mo.

A drawing also was held for a quilt, which went to Rosemary Revtner of Charles, Mo.