Somewhere on the flank of a painted Dalmatian inside the Franklin County Animal Control building, a small bat hides in plain sight, tucked among the dog's black spots, waiting for a visitor sharp-eyed enough to spot it. It is the one detail the shelter insisted on, and it is proof of just how much thought twenty-two Benton Grade School students poured into a mural that now greets visitors who walk through that lobby beneath a hand-painted sign reading Second Chance.

Bethany Sanders, the fifth through eighth grade art teacher behind the project, grew up in Galatia, a small community near Thompsonville, and graduated high school there in 2018. She spent her first two years of college at Southeastern Illinois College before finishing at Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 2022. After a year teaching kindergarten through twelfth grade art at Carrier Mills, she returned to Benton, where she had once student-taught, and this is now her fourth year in the district. She still lives in Galatia with her husband.

Art was not always a constant for Sanders growing up. Her school did not consistently offer it until junior high and high school, and once it did, she was drawn to it. She has been drawn to nearly every medium since, from ceramics to sculpture, to drawing, and now teaches a little of everything to her students because, as she put it, that variety is exactly what the job demands.

Her advanced art class, a mix of seventh and eighth graders who apply with a portfolio, with grades and attendance also considered, had been asking for a mural project. Last year, the request finally lined up with an opportunity. Franklin County Animal Control had been hoping to find someone to design and paint a mural for its lobby, but a contest it ran for the project drew no entries. Benton school board member Brad Wilson heard about the shelter's need and suggested the mural as a project for the district's students. He raised the idea with the board, and Principal Mr. Pulliam passed the word along to Sanders, who called the shelter to work out the details.

The shelter's requirements were simple: a variety of animals, a range of coat colors, and one hidden bat, hidden the way a reader hunts for Waldo in a crowded picture. They began designing before winter break and spent a couple of months developing the mural, building the composition almost entirely from photographs of their own pets. They voted on a limited color palette, mindful that the shelter runs on donations and would be covering the cost of the paint itself.

Painting began well before the class's official field trip on April 21. Sanders brought small groups in after school ahead of time, so the full design was already sketched on the wall by the day everyone arrived together. With twenty-two students and only so much wall space, those not painting the central mural added a border along the ceiling edge, including tiny mice and paw prints in the cat room. The work continued through additional after-school sessions and, fittingly, was not finished until the very last day of the school year.

The mural carries plenty of personal touches. Students signed their names along the bottom edge, and many painted their own pets into the scene. One student included a beloved family pet that had passed away. The hidden bat ended up tucked among the spots of the mural's Dalmatian, so well concealed that when Sanders sent the design to the shelter for approval, staff initially thought she had left it out entirely.

Sanders said one goal was to give students a chance “to apply skills in a real-world setting and contribute something positive to the community.” Some students, she said, need a place where they feel like they belong, and art can be that place whether or not they end up loving the subject.

Sanders kept the community looped in through her classroom website, posting progress photos for parents to follow, while Mr. Pulliam shared updates at board meetings. Outside the classroom, she channels a similar creative streak into BeeBlossom Studio, a small flower farm she started this past summer, selling bouquets at the Stonefort farmers’ market.

Some of her seventh graders from last year, now eighth graders, already know how satisfying that kind of work can be. This fall, they are repainting a peeling pillar in her classroom with a mural of their own, proof that one project at a local animal shelter sparked something that keeps finding new walls to fill.