Riverside High student wins Congressional Art Competition for 7th District

Selena Ni has turned a Riverside High School art project into a yearlong showcase in Washington, giving Decatur County a rare piece of national visibility. The Decaturville student won the 2026 Congressional Art Competition for Tennessee’s 7th District, and her artwork is now headed to the U.S. Capitol Complex, where it will be professionally framed and displayed for a full year.

Congressional staff visited Riverside High School to collect Ni’s painting, marking the handoff from a local classroom to a federal exhibit space that draws lawmakers, staff and visitors from across the country. Riverside’s fine arts program already gives students access to theatre, instrumental music, chorus and visual arts, along with class guitar, rock band and general music, so Ni’s win also spotlights a program that reaches beyond the county’s usual academic and athletic headlines.

The Congressional Art Competition has been running since 1982, and more than 650,000 high school students have taken part nationwide. The competition is open to high school students, and each member of Congress may designate only one first-place winner for display in the Cannon Tunnel, which makes the honor especially selective. For 2026, district offices were instructed to submit the winner’s information to the Congressional Institute by May 1.

For Decatur County, Ni’s win does more than add another school trophy. It puts a Riverside student from Decaturville into one of the Capitol’s most visible public corridors for the next year, a result that can sharpen attention on the school system’s visual arts pipeline and give other local art students a higher-profile example of what a county classroom can produce. In a district where fine arts must compete for time and attention, that kind of recognition carries weight well beyond the frame.