When First Lady Melania Trump issued a challenge to America’s young people to create artwork commemorating the 100th anniversary of the women’s suffrage movement, Davis Sanders knew the perfect subject for his submission.

The nation’s first female governor who is one of several women who will be honored this year by having her photo projected onto Mount Rushmore also just happens to be not only Davis’ great-great-grandmother but also one of his namesakes.

Which makes it all the more special that his drawing of Nellie Davis Tayloe Ross is one of Oklahoma’s finalists for Melania Trump’s “Building the Movement: America’s Youth Celebrate 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage” art exhibit at the White House next month.

Davis, the son of House Majority Leader Mike and Nellie Sanders of Kingfisher, submitted a hand-drawn replica of his great-great-grandmother’s campaign poster when she ran for re-election to the office of governor of Wyoming in 1925.

Her campaign slogan, “The Woman Who Made Good,” was a telling reminder of just how rare it was for females to find success in politics in the early 1920s.

She followed in the footsteps of her husband, William Ross, who served as Wyoming’s governor from 1923 until his death in 1924.

Ross followed her term as governor with a later appointment as the first female director of the U.S. Mint, a position she held from 1933-53.

She died in Washington, D.C., in 1976 at the age of 101The White House art exhibit will showcase artwork by young Americans depicting the 100th anniversary of ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

One winning piece of student artwork from each of the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, America Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands will be exhibited alongside images of women’s suffrage parades, marches, and gatherings that took place at or around the White House.

“As we celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment, it’s important to include our children in the conversation so they can learn and understand the history behind the women’s suffrage movement” Mrs. Trump said.

“For decades, women leaders lobbied, marched, and protested for equality and their right to vote in the United States. It is my hope that this project will both support and expand the important conversations taking place on equality and the impact of peaceful protests, while encouraging children to engage in the history behind this consequential movement in their own home state.”

Davis, a sixth grader at Holy Trinity Catholic School in Okarche, is competing against student artists in grades 3-12 for the honor of being Oklahoma’s representative in the exhibit.

Finalists in the contest were asked to mail in their original artwork to the White House by July 13.

“We couldn’t be more proud and we know Gah (our Nellie) would be so touched to know her greatgreat-grandson wanted to honor her sacrifice as our nation’s first woman governor and the first woman director of the U.S. Mint,” his mom Nellie said.

Nellie Sanders will preent a program on the life and times of her famous great-grandmother at the monthly Kingfisher County Republican Women meeting at noon Wednesday at Kingfisher County Farm Bureau in Kingfisher.

The meeting is open to the public and attendees are welcome to bring their own lunches.