AHS students medal at state meet
By Sandy Morris
Two Albany High School students medaled at the University Interscholastic League state academic meet held last Saturday, May 1 at Abilene Wylie High School.
Senior Hannah Trail was notified Monday that she had earned a gold medal in the Editorial Writing event.
Luke Ivy, a junior, placed third overall in the Science competition and had the top paper in the Biology portion of the test.
In addition to the two medalists, senior Tana Thompson had qualified for and competed in two events at the state level – Feature Writing and Headline Writing.
Typically, the state meet is held in Austin for all UIL qualifiers, but because of COVID concerns, education service centers around the state hosted the schools from their area, then the entries were sent electronically to Austin for judging. Results were announced Monday afternoon.
Journalism sponsor Donnie Lucas commented that Trail is an outstanding writer who has won numerous honors in the Interscholastic League Press (ILPC) competition, including two “Tops in Texas” awards, but this is her first trip to the state UIL academic meet.
ILPC is the separate journalism division of the UIL, and entries from the Albany High School newspaper, The Lions Roar, are entered in that competition every spring. Trail is a co-editor of The Lions Roar this year and has been on the staff since she was a sophomore.
“Hannah has competed with the journalism team for several years and has always performed very well,” said Lucas. “She worked hard preparing for state, and it paid off.”
Editorial Writing is different from other journalism events in that it follows a formula or pattern, according to Lucas. Writers are given a prompt and must then pick a side and argue either for or against the prompt.
“Writers must be able to give the very best argument and include several good, strong points to make their case,” he said. “They must then be able to refute arguments on the opposing side.”
Science sponsor André Raymond was equally as proud of Ivy’s performance at the state meet.
“Luke is intelligent, but it is his work ethic that has pushed him to succeed at this level,” said Raymond. “Watching him take the test on Saturday, I could see him using test-taking strategies to get the best possible score. Obviously, it worked.”
As a junior, Ivy will return next year, and Raymond expects he will continue working to improve.
“Luke will be taking physics with Mr. Norton next year, which should help him score more points on that portion of the test,” Raymond said. “He will continue to work with Mr. Norton catching up on chemistry, which was shortened due to COVID last year when he took the class as a dual-credit college course.”
AHS UIL coordinator Rick Davis said he was thankful the students were able to compete this year, even though the meet was held at Wylie High School rather than at the University of Texas in Austin.
“It was quite the honor for Hannah, Luke, and Tana to even make it to state,” said Davis. “To have two of them place is awesome. I’m so proud of all of them.”
