Senior Cortlyn Dees and sophomore Erin Westermann will advance to state in journalism after competing in the Region 1-4A Academic Meet at Hardin-Simmons University May 2.

Students competed after advancing from district in events including accounting, calculator applications, computer applications, computer science, current issues and events, editorial writing, informative speaking, journalism events, literary criticism, mathematics, number sense, poetry interpretation, prose interpretation and ready writing.

The journalism team tied for the regional championship with Denton High School. Freshman Callie Boren placed fourth in headline writing and junior Tasha Brown  placed sixth in editorial writing.

“UIL journalism is a little stressful because most of the time you are writing until the very last second,” Dees said. “The results are very subjective but, you can’t take it personally because it’s only one judge, one day and one paper. It’s so different from other sports I have competed in. I enjoy racing against the clock and trying to put together this puzzle of a story.”

Dees, who placed second in editorial and news writing, and Westermann, who placed second in feature writing, will travel to Austin to compete May 19-21.

“I can’t describe how exited I am,” Dees said. “I have been working at this since my freshman year, and I’ve made it to regionals twice before but had never made it past there. It was really disappointing the past two years, so I went into these last two competitions with the mentality of, ‘If I go on, then it’s great. If I don’t, then it’s still great.'”