Five students will compete at the State UIL Academic Meet May 24-26 after placing at the regional meet in Lubbock.

To advance to the state level, students must place in the top three at both the district and regional levels. Out of the eight students who placed, five made the top three in the competitions. Senior Bella Barnett placed second in persuasive speaking and is coached by speech teacher Stefanie Rodarte-Suto. Senior Tasha Brown placed second in news writing and junior Erin Westermann placed third in feature writing. Junior Adrianna Jones and senior Lizzy Medina placed second and third, respectively, in computer applications, which requires contestants to work in Word, Excel and Access.

“They give us a paper that has a scenario on it and most of the time, it starts out in Access, which is a database,” Medina said. “You have to make either a query, which is a fancy table, a report or a form. Then, you transfer that to either Excel or Word. So really, you’re moving this document in between those three applications. We only have half an hour to do this. It is pretty close to impossible to actually finish everything.”

The finished product is graded on a point scale. Medina finished her Word document and received 133 points.

“If I had done it perfectly, it would have gotten me a 150,” Medina said. “If you end up printing other stuff, that adds to your points. Our test was a lot harder than I thought it would be. When I was done, I was thinking, ‘Oh no, I didn’t place.’ We were waiting for results and we waited for two hours for our results. It was crazy. It was supposed to take like only 45 minutes.”

When the judge called Medina’s name, she walked up expecting fourth place.

“I got down there and he handed me my medal and said, ‘You got third,’” Medina said. “So I freaked out. I was speechless. Anna Jones had 22 points higher than I did. When I got up there, I was thinking okay, she got up there, too. They called her next and she got second. There were tears coming out of my eyes. I was so happy.”

Because Jones and Medina advanced to state their first year of competition, Medina said she feels they will do well at state. The computer applications team is coached by business teachers Lance Culbert and Dawn Welch.

“We have a really good coach,” Medina said. “Mrs. Welch helps us learn what we need to. She’s there to explain what we don’t understand. I say definitely do UIL. I had never done UIL until this year. Now, I’m regretting that decision because there are so many different opportunities.”

Eighteen Canyon High students competed at the regional meet. In addition to the state qualifiers, three other students placed in their events. Senior Landon Work placed fifth in computer science and seventh  in mathematics. Senior Ty Crenshaw placed ninth in literary criticism while junior Quade Salazar was a quarterfinalist in debate.

After competing in feature writing, Westermann said she did not feel confident she would place because her coach, journalism teacher Laura Smith, was concerned about her placement of information. However, the mistake did not affect her chance to advance.

“We were all sitting on a bench in the Texas Tech basement of the building we were in and Mrs. Smith was talking to another adviser,” Westermann said. “The adviser asked, ‘Well, how are your kids doing?’ She pointed to Tasha and said, ‘She’s going to state.’ Then, she pointed to me and said, ‘And she’s going to state.’ That was how she told me that I was advancing. She always has these ways she tells us.”

Westermann also placed fourth in headline writing, which means she is a state alternate. The journalism team placed second overall.

“The state competition is a completely different beast than the other contests leading up to it because it’s a different format entirely,” Westermann said. “In the contests before, everybody has the same prompt with the same quotes from the same people, same information, and it’s just how you format the story. At state, it’s a live interview process and students ask the questions and type up the quotes and gather all the information that way.”

Westermann said she is looking forward to the state meet, regardless of the outcome.

“I don’t know how I’ll do placing-wise, but I’m just excited to go, “Westermann said. “It’s always a great experience to compete and meet so many people and get to interact with everyone around the state.”