(this is an archive story, refer to following byline for author name)
By Kialani Siavii
On March 26, the UIL (University Interscholastic League) Academic teams competed at the district meet at Granbury high school. The students who advanced to regionals will compete on April 22 and 23 in Lubbock at Texas Tech University.
The teams that competed at UIL were journalism, current events, spelling and vocabulary, literature criticism, science and math.
“It was fun,” senior Juanisse Gascot said, “it was a good time, we won some and lost some but we did better than we ever had!”
Many students were successful in their events with the highest placement being first for literary criticism. The students in literary criticism are junior Emily Willis, senior Hailey Pope, junior Toni Ogidan and Gascot.
The other students that placed were, senior Arita Qermi who placed second for news writing, junior Miguel Sesmas placed fourth for headline writing, freshman Addison Strybosch for editorial writing, senior Kai Hernandez fifth for current events, senior Kialani Siavii fourth in news writing, senior Om Patel sixth for math and senior Madi Hollerich fourth for spelling and vocab and sixth in current events.
“I am excited to be competing at regionals!” Strybosch said. “I think it would be a lot of fun and a good chance to bond with the other people going.”
On April 2. the oral interpretation students competed at their event and took five spots, advancing them to regionals. In Oral interpretation poetry, sophomore Hannah Poff placed first, senior Madi Hollerich and Alexia Terrazas placed second and third respectively. In the prose event, senior Tarra Kelly placed first and sophomore Morgan Munoz placed second.
“Watching a student win a medal or ribbon is the best feeling!” UIL coordinator, AP English 3 and Oral interpretation teacher Alesha Bohannon said. “‘The pride and joy are infectious.”
The UIL event coaches meet with their students around once a week during bear time to provide material and feedback on their performances, they also give them practice material that is similar to the ones seen at UIL.
The students will be heading to compete on April 22. Wish these students good luck at regionals!