The 29th Annual Treasures of the Texas Coast Children's Art Contest supported by the Texas General Land Office’s (GLO) Adopt-A-Beach Program is now underway. All public, private, and homeschooled Texas kindergarten through sixth-grade students are invited to participate in the contest. Students' artwork should illustrate why the Texas coast is important or special to each student.

Ten winners will be chosen in mid-April from the four grade-level categories: K – 2nd, 3rd– 4th, 5th, and 6th. One grand prize winner will be chosen from among the 40 grade-level categories finalists. Winning artwork will appear together in a 2026 calendar, which will be distributed throughout the state.

This year's grand prize winner will receive one 6-8 night Caribbean cruise for two from Royal Caribbean International departing out of Galveston, Miami, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale, Port Canaveral or Puerto Rico, in addition to the prizes listed below for all winners. The grand prize winner's teacher will also receive one 6-8 night Caribbean cruise for two courtesy of Royal Caribbean and a prize from Adopt-A-Beach.

All 40 winners will receive two free day passes to Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels or Galveston, a gift card to an art supply store, a gift from Texas Adopt-A-Beach, a certificate of recognition from the Texas General Land Office, and copies of the 2026 calendar displaying the winning artwork.

All submissions must be postmarked by Wednesday, March 5, 2025 and mailed to the Texas General Land Office at:

Texas General Land Office
Adopt-A-Beach Program: Children’s Art Contest 2025
P.O. Box 12873
Austin, Texas 78711-2873

For more information, contest rules, and an entry form for the art contest, click here.

LOOK: See America's 50 Best Beach Towns

Every beach town has its share of pluses and minuses, which got us thinking about what makes a beach town the best one to live in. To find out, Stacker consulted data from WalletHub, released June 17, 2020, that compares U.S. beach towns. Ratings are based on six categories: affordability, weather, safety, economy, education and health, and quality of life. The cities ranged in population from 10,000 to 150,000, but they had to have at least one local beach listed on TripAdvisor. Read the full methodology here. From those rankings, we selected the top 50. Readers who live in California and Florida will be unsurprised to learn that many of towns featured here are in one of those two states.

Keep reading to see if your favorite beach town made the cut.

Gallery Credit: Keri Wiginton

More From Kicks 105