Students advance to State UIL Academic Meet

Senior Luke Porter and sophomore Chandler Shaw will compete in the  UIL state academic meet May 6-8  after earning top three placings at the regional meet in San Angelo, April 23-25. Two other journalism students and the one-act play earned state alternate honors.

Porter placed first in the computer applications contest  while Shaw placed second in news writing. Freshman Rachel Smith earned fourth in news writing, and senior Krislyn Wurtz earned fourth in feature writing, qualifiying each to serve as state alternates.

The  journalism team was named second place regional journalism team.

The one-act play “Paganini” placed third at the regional meet, earning a spot as the alternate play for the state meet.  Seniors Josiah Robinson and Thomas Wieck were named to the all-star cast and senior Andrew Young was named to the honorable mention all-star cast.

Each of the four regions in Texas sends three students per event to the state meet, placing the students who qualified in the top 12 4A students in their events in the state.

One-act cast advances to regional meet

Continuing with the music of Paganini, the one-act play will advance to the regional meet in San Angelo April 23 after overcoming musical difficulties to win the area competition.

An hour before the competition, the group found a rule in the UIL handbook that disallowed the use of live music without approval. This included violin music, which the lead, senior Josiah Robinson plays several times during the performance, and singing. With quick adaptations, the cast still managed to continue to the next level and will be able to use live music at the regional level.

Seniors Sabrina Meck and Josiah Robinson made the All-Star Cast, and juniors Madison Russ and Blair Carpenter were named to the alternate All-Star Cast.

The next public performance of the play will be Tuesday, April 20 during activity period and again at 7:00 p.m. that evening.