The UIL Academic team won Sweepstakes at the District meet last Saturday, March 25 in Hamshire-Fannett and many students have advanced to the Regional meet, either individually or as a team.

In ready writing, senior Autumn Rendall placed first and Sydney Smith placed fifth. Rendall said she has always had a huge passion for writing and as soon as she found out about the ready writing and journalism events, she signed up. She practices for ready writing by always doing research on any possible examples she can use, and by practicing her writing. Rendall has been in ready writing since her sophomore year and started participating in journalism events her junior year.

“I’ve been working hard to be recognized for ready writing since sophomore year, so being a senior and becoming a district champion means the world to me,” Rendall said. “I have never been to Regionals before, so I am very excited to explore the beautiful Sam Houston campus with my friends.”

The journalism team won first place overall. In feature writing, senior Valen Elliott placed first and senior Bailey Noah placed third. Elliott said she feels very honored that the judges felt her story was deserving of first place and knows all of her hard work has paid off. Elliott also placed second in news writing along with Noah placing fifth. In editorial writing, Rendall placed third and junior Alora Jones placed sixth. Rendall also placed fifth in headline writing and freshman Sydney Bowman placed third.

“Going back to Regionals for the third time, and my last time since I’m a senior, I look forward to making more memories and hopefully advancing to State again,” Elliott said. “I have done news and feature writing since my sophomore year. Ever since I started, I have absolutely loved it.”

Practicing about six and a half hours per week, junior Chandler Barr placed first in Biology and the Biology team placed second overall. In science, Barr came through with winning second place. He also placed second in mathematics with senior Thomas King placing first, senior Cody Girouard placing third and senior Chris Cook placing sixth. The mathematics team placed first overall. Also in number sense, Barr placed second, King placed first, Girouard placed third, and Cook placed fourth. The number sense team also placed first overall. Barr said he did not have a plan of being involved in UIL until his counselor suggested it. Luckily, Barr has excelled, and will definitely continue participating in UIL.

“It felt good winning first place, I suppose,” Barr said. “It’s always fun to be successful. We had a good meet and appear to be in a pretty good position for Regionals, so I was happy with my scores.”

The current issues team proudly placed first overall. Being his third year in UIL,  senior Mathew Cox placed first in current issues and junior Spencer Johns placed second. The Computer Science team also placed first overall. There was a three-way tie in Computer Science for King, Nick Mugleston, and Tyler Wolfford. Cox placed fourth in Computer Science, as well.

“The most challenging part of current issues is easily the essay,” Cox said. “The topic is sometimes really random and the time limit is fast. It kind of terrifies me.”

In Poetry Interpretation, junior Dalton Teeler won first place, senior Connor Alexander won third, and freshman Lucas Ridout won fourth. In Prose Interpretation, sophomore Ashlynn Ellis placed first, senior Tyler Regan placed second, and sophomore Elijah Ridout placed fourth. This is Teeler’s first time going to Regionals out of the three years he has been in Poetry and Prose UIL, and he said he could not be more excited about competing against others.

“Winning first place felt amazing,” Teeler said. “I’ve been working so hard for months preparing and training, so hopefully I’ll do just as good at Regionals.”

Other results from the meet include: Accounting- Katie Arabie, 2nd, Tori Bland, 3rd, Hailey Perkins, 4th, 1st place team. Calculator Applications- King, 2nd, Cook, 6th, 1st place team. Informative Speaking-  Akhil Tejani, 1st, Adrienne Norris, 4th; Persuasive Speaking- Aman Tejani, 2nd, Kiera Figgins, 6th, 1st place team. Lincoln Douglas Debate- Figgins, 3rd, Norris, 5th; 1st place team.

Those who advanced to Regionals will compete this Friday and Saturday in Huntsville.