CHICAGO - Metra announced the winners of its annual Safety Contest designed to promote and reinforce railroad safety to keep children safe around trains.

Hickory Creek Middle School student Madison Kasbaum won first place for the seventh-grade entries, while Chelsea Intermediate School student Caitlin Nelligan was awarded third place in the third-grade entries for her Safety Poster.

Lexxi Hurley, an 11th-grade student at Plainfield East High School won third place. Emily Wisinski, a fourth-grader at Mokena Intermediate School, won first place in the essay contest's elementary school division. And, Grand Prairie Elementary School won the Top Participating School award.

This year's contest theme was "Safety First: Look, Listen and Live."

The first-place poster designs will be featured as safety posters and distributed to more than 2,000 schools. The posters will also be featured in station displays, in Metra's 2012 safety calendar, on monthly tickets and on Metra's contest website and Facebook page. Winning safety essays will also be featured in the safety calendar, the Metra contest website and Facebook page.

First-place winners receive a laptop computer, while second- and third-place poster contest winners receive $250 and $100 gift cards, respectively.