Twenty art students in a Lakeridge High School want to win $50,000 for their school’s art program.Oh, and a trip to New York City.

The students in Shannon McBride’s Art 3 class made it to the top 10 in the Northwest region of the Vans Custom Culture high school shoe-customization competition. Fifty semifinalist schools from five regions are competing for the chance to go to New York.

Regional winners, determined by online voting that ends May 13, will spend three nights in New York, where the grand prize winner will be chosen. Each of the five regional winners receives $4,000 for its school art department.

In its fourth year, the Vans shoe design competition challenges students to design four pairs of canvas Vans shoes in four categories: Action Sports, Music, Local Flavor, and Art.

For the music category, Lakeridge students used a heavy metal theme. For the sports-themed shoe, they focused on snowboarding on Mount Hood. Local flavor category was depicted through the Portland Rose Festival dragon boat races. In the art category, students deconstructed the shoes and put them back together as a sculpture.

McBride is promoting her students’ work at service organizations and other avenues.”I stand up at lacrosse games and say, ‘Hey, I’m Shannon and I’m the art teacher at Lakeridge, would you please vote for my kids,’” she said.

In her 21st year of teaching art, McBride is proud of her students’ work.

“I think our shoes are way more creative than others, which are two-dimensional,” she said. “We got out of the box and pushed it to a whole different level, going three-dimensional.”

She’s excited about the possibility of taking her students to New York.

“As a teacher, it is pretty rewarding to be able to help provide these kinds of experiences for your students,” the West Linn resident said. “I think art programs do not get the recognition they deserve. I want people to know the arts are alive and well at Lakeridge High School.”

(UPDATE: Lakeridge students made it to New York. Voting occurred here: www.vans.com/customculture  Voting ended 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time, May 13.)