Washington was announced as the winner of the 2022 #IowansUnite CommUNITY contest after impressing an independent panel of judges with both their video and essay submissions. The minute-long video presented to the judges was put together by Randy Williams, the uncle of Isabella Santoro, whose essay was used in the contest. Williams spoke with KCII and talked about how his hobby and a nudge from his niece helped showcase Washington to the judges.

“At first, it was like, boy, wouldn’t it be cool if we could do this and I’ve done a lot of videos for my company, and for fun, I have a drone and other equipment. Since 2020 every time something happened in Washington, either with an event or the fall colors, I went out and got a video of it just in case I wanted to make a movie. So when she asked me to put together the video, I realized I already had everything we needed.”

Williams estimates that he put in over 60 hours of work into the one-minute video, which is still available to view on the Washington Chamber of Commerce YouTube channel. Williams said he wished he could’ve showcased some more of Washington’s great businesses but believes that the video did a great job of displaying Washington at its best.