The UIL academic team competed in the district meet at West Fork High School and advanced six students to Region.
Senior Jacob Rother, senior Nate Webb, junior JT Head, senior Tricia Darcy, senior Cameron Minatrea and junior Caleb Kazeem will compete April 24-25 at A&M Consolidated High School.
“I felt kind of shocked about my placement,” Darcy said. “I didn’t think I tried that hard but was able to advance in every event. I was most surprised about headlines since I learned the rules like five minutes before.”
Darcy participated in the news, feature, editorial and headline writing events, where she placed fifth, third, third and second, respectively.
UIL academics isn’t just writing events. Rother, Webb and Head competed in computer science. For the second year in a row, the comp-sci team advanced to region after placing first in every category.
“For comp-sci it’s split into two parts,” senior Jacob Rother said. “There is a written test over certain computer functions, and then there is a practical exam where they give us problems to solve using our own written code.”
Although students are excited about advancing, they know that Region will be no walk in the park.
“I felt pretty excited that I got first in both of my events,” Rother said. “But we can definitely improve by studying for the written test more. It might have been easy at district but Region will for sure be harder and we need to be ready.”
