Secretary Naig Invites Students to Enter the 2025 Choose Iowa Calendar Contest

Contest winners will be honored at the 2025 Iowa State Fair and will have their artwork published in a popular coloring calendar 

DES MOINES, Iowa (April 8, 2025) – Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig is inviting school-aged Iowa students to participate in the 2025 Choose Iowa Calendar Contest. Choose Iowa is the state’s signature brand for Iowa grown, raised and made food, beverages and ag products and it is a marketing initiative of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. 

"The Choose Iowa Coloring Calendar Contest offers school-aged students a fun opportunity to highlight Iowa agriculture and its incredible importance to our state," said Secretary Naig. “I encourage students to share their original artwork for a chance to be featured and published in this popular annual coloring calendar. I invite parents, teachers, or grandparents to help your student get their artwork submitted this spring, and I can’t wait to celebrate the talented students who are selected at the 2025 Iowa State Fair.”

Submitted artwork should feature at least one aspect of Iowa agriculture, with an emphasis on food, beverages, livestock, or crop production, including horticulture. Submissions will be judged on creativity and connections to agriculture in everyday life. Entries are due June 1 at 12:00 p.m. and winners will be announced at the 2025 Iowa State Fair.

Secretary Naig will recognize the winning artists during a special awards ceremony on Tuesday, August 12 in the Agriculture Building at the 2025 Iowa State Fair. Winning submissions will also be included in the 2025/2026 Choose Iowa calendar distributed by the Department during the Iowa State Fair and online at ChooseIowa.com.

School-aged Iowa students up to 18-years-old are invited to participate. Pictures should be drawn on plain white, 8.5 by 11-inch paper in a horizontal orientation using only black lines. The pictures should not be colored in. For creative inspiration, the 2024/2025 calendar may be viewed here.

Entries can be submitted via the form found on the Choose Iowa website, emailed to chooseiowa@iowaagriculture.gov or mailed to the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Attn: Coloring Calendar, 502 E. 9th St., Des Moines, Iowa, 50319.

If mailed, each submission should include the registration sheet with basic information about the artist, including the artist’s name, age, grade, school, hometown as well as the name, email and phone number of a parent or guardian. If the artwork is submitted by the student’s teacher, then the teacher’s name and contact information should be included. 

To be eligible for consideration, artwork submissions must be received by the Department by noon on June 1, 2025.