Metra announced the winners of its 2008-09 safety campaign contest, designed to promote railroad safety practices to students in grades K-12 throughout Northeastern Illinois. This year the transit agency received nearly 3,000 entries in its safety contests from hundreds of schools, marking a doubling of student participation from last year's campaign. For the past three years, the Metra Safety Poster Contest has invited students in the six-county region to submit poster designs displaying important railroad safety messages. This year's poster contest theme was "Safety Rules: Look, Listen and Live."

At the judging event, first-, second- and third-place winners were chosen from each grade level for the Metra Safety Poster Contest. First-place poster contest winners and essay contest winners receive a laptop computer, while second- and third-place poster contest winners receive $250 and $100 gift cards, respectively. The top participating school also receives a computer for the entire school and the "People's Choice Award" winner receives a $250 gift card.

The first-place poster designs will be featured as next year's safety posters and distributed to more than 2,000 schools in Northeastern Illinois. The posters will also be featured in station displays, in Metra's 2010 safety calendar, on monthly tickets and on Metra's contest Web site.

Ethan Chen, a second-grade student at Copeland Manor School in Libertyville was among first-place winners.

Cameron Chen, a fifth-grader at Copeland Manor School was among the second-place winners.