Students prepare for UIL contests

Albany High School students were the top journalism team and came close to winning the overall title at the Stamford Cotton Classic Academic Invitational on Saturday, Feb. 23.

“I was very pleased that we were second team overall – only 11 points behind the leader, Guthrie,” said local UIL coordinator Rick Davis. 

Schools participating in the practice meet last weekend were Albany, Aspermont, Lueders/Avoca, Guthrie, Hamlin, Haskell, Rule, and the host school. 

Davis noted that Albany competitors have made progress over the last few weeks.

“I was proud to see improvement in our mathematics scores; the team has been working hard,” he said. “Spelling has stepped up, Ready Writers are doing very well, and we placed in Current Issues and Events this time. My goal at district on March 26 is to see how many we can qualify to the regional meet.”

Individual Winners

Addison Asher won first in Copy Editing, Feature Writing, and Headline Writing. The junior also took fourth place in Editorial Writing.

Senior Jillian Guinn claimed first in News Writing.

Hannah Trail won Ready Writing and was second in Editorial Writing. The versatile sophomore also took third in Mathematics.

Junior Gregori Mikeska placed second in Current Issues & Events with a score of 35.5, only a half point behind the leader. Mikeska also claimed second in News Writing.

Alayna Koemel took second in Feature Writing. In addition the junior was fourth in Copy Editing and fifth in Editorial Writing.

Taylor Scott, another junior, was second in Headline Writing and fourth in Spelling & Vocabulary.

Sophomore Tana Thompson placed in four events. She was third in Ready Writing and in Copy Editing, and she took fourth in Feature Writing and fifth in Headline Writing.

Ty Everitt and Luke Ivy, both freshmen, placed third and fourth respectively in News Writing.

Freshman Brooks Neece was sixth in Spelling & Vocabulary.

Winning Teams

The top Journalism team award was won by all of the Albany students that placed in Copy Editing, Headline Writing, Feature Writing, Editorial Writing, and/or News Writing, including Asher, Ty Everitt, Guinn, Ivy, Koemel, Mikeska, Scott, Thompson, and Trail. 

The team of Ty Everitt, Caroline Masters, and Trail was second in Science.

Albany’s Math team was third. Members were Trail, Max Balliew, and Ivy.

Also entered at Stamford were Sarah Cotter, Sidney Bartee, and Kade Everitt. 

Upcoming Events 

Albany will likely face an uphill battle at the upcoming district meet, according to Davis.

“There were no speaker competitions at this tournament,” said Davis. “We don’t have many speaker entries, and the schools that do have kids in those competitions can earn points that we won’t. I’m afraid that there are too many contests where we don’t have any participants for us to be able to win district, but the strong journalism team may be enough to pull it out for us.”

The district meet is scheduled for Tuesday, March 26, in Hawley.  

The organizers at Hawley are starting the district meet early that morning, so student athletes should be done with most of the events in plenty of time to travel to their games. 

Top placing individuals and teams advance to the Region 1 meet at Odessa College on April 12-13.

The Academic State meet will be May 2-4 at the University of Texas Austin campus.