2 students advance to state UIL meet

By Melinda L. Lucas

Two Albany High students qualified to advance to the UIL State Academic Meet in Austin after placing in the top three at the Region 2 Academic Meet in Denison last Friday.

A total of six local students advanced to the Region 2 meet, with three placing in the top six.

Junior Sidney Russell placed second in Feature Writing, along with sophomore Avery Everitt taking third in the same event to earn their first trip to the state meet.

Senior Mayson Garcia placed in the top six with a fifth place finish in Editorial Writing out of a field of 24 competing in each contest.

Everitt also competed in News Writing, while Russell and senior Ashley Richards took part in the Copy Editing contest. Junior Robyn Trail qualified for the regional contest in Headline Writing.

Each of the students finished in the top three places at the district meet in March in order to advance.

Sophomore Holden Sanchez made the trip to Grayson College for the regional meet, competing in Computer Science.

Russell and Everitt will travel to Austin for the May 17 UIL State Meet, both competing at 11:00 a.m. on the UT campus.

“I was very proud of the kids working to get to this level,” journalism teacher Donnie Lucas said. “It is always a big accomplishment for any student to advance to the state meet, and these girls have been working hard on practice prompts to prepare, even though they are busy with other events in the spring.”

The three students placing in journalism events earned enough points to take third place in the team competition. Muenster took first, followed by Archer City in second place.

There will be a total of 12 students competing at the state level in each contest, consisting of the top three from each of the four regions in the state.

Traveling with the group to Denison were sponsor Jennifer Everitt, computer science coach Matthew Howard, and Lucas.