On Saturday, Apr, 25, five students went to regional UIL to compete in their separate events. These students include sophomore Abby Ressler, junior Kennedy Wapole, and seniors Payton Mathison, Aubrey Freytag, and Brennan Henneke. Kennedy has found a passion for grammar and spelling, which has drawn her to her competition.
“So my advisor recommended all of these different journalism contests, and what I do is copy editing, and while it’s only a 15-minute contest and it’s really short, I feel like I’ve always paid more attention to grammar issues and spelling issues; it’s just something I’ve always noticed. And so when I saw that’s what this contest is about, I was like oh I like this and I want to keep doing this more,” Walpole said.
While some competitions can be very short, others can take a long time and have a lot of questions to be answered. Brennan found that the mix of pressure and the long event was the hardest part of his competition.
“Probably a mix of pressure and also having to write an essay at the end of 45 questions,” Henneke said.
Brennan has a strong interest in anything social studies/history-wise, and believes that him having a passion for social studies has been able to help him with his event because he loves to practice for it.
“I do kind of like studying history to begin with, just as a personal hobby, so I guess that helps out in the end,” Henneke said.
Even though the competition is the part most people see, many students have been preparing before the Regional UIL took place.
“I come back to school during my lunch and work on comparing and practicing, as well as when I come in the morning, I also look over it on my own time and use practice tests,” Walpole said.
Abby Ressler is a busy student with extracurricular activities such as FFA as well as UIL, but she has learned to balance all of her activities by doing what is important first. Unfortunately, none of the five students were able to advance, but hopefully, with Abby’s method of practicing UIL, she’ll be able to go past the region next year.
“I try to balance my schedule and prioritize what is most important to me,” Ressler said.
