Eight students placed at the district UIL meet, bringing home 13 awards, Saturday, March 23. Four students who placed in the top three in their events will move on to the regional competition April 20 at UTSA in San Antonio.

In Journalist events, senior Rachel Sloan took second in News Writing and sixth in Feature Writing, junior Kristina Jingling took second in Feature and sixth in News, senior Shelly Spencer took fifth in News, fifth in Editorial Writing and third in Feature, and senior Zack Short took fourth in Headline Writing.

“I am really excited to go to regionals because I’ve never gone before,” Jingling said. “I’m excited to be given the opportunity to potentially advance to state.”

In English events, senior Danton Waggoner took second while senior Brandie Moser was sixth in Literary Criticism, and senior Casey McMahan took fourth in Ready Writing.

“It feels great because it’s almost the fun side of academics if that’s possible,” McMahan said. “There are no grades and you get to beat people at things they they’re good at. It’s cool because you get to meet really smart people, they are all geniuses. Everyone is there because they like to do it.”

The Speech and Debate competitions happened earlier in the week with senior Brianna Rood taking second in Poetry Interpretation and Sloan finishing second in Prose Interpretation.

“It was really scary going in,” Sloan said. “We didn’t except anyone to advance and when two of us did, it was a surprise. We worked really hard to get there, and we know we have a lot more to do to be ready for regionals.”