Four headed to region from UIL Academics

By Lizbeth Cuellar | Big Stick Editor |

Held on March 24-26 at Churchill high school, more than 60 students competed in 16 categories of UIL academics and five speech and debate events. Out of these students only 11 had students that placed top six in their event. Of those, only four students placed top three to make it to region:  junior Matthew Mandell in Persuasive Speaking and senior Miguel Castro in Informative Speaking, and sophomore D’Miracle Burleson in News Writing and junior Hailey Massey in Headline Writing.

“Last year when I was in Houston I placed fifth in the district, however this year I placed second for the actual district meet,” said Massey. “It’s stressful because you’re there all day, I adore Mrs. Boerger because she works really well with us individually.”

All of the academic UIL events meet at least once a week and go to practice meets throughout the season.

“My students and I meet every week and we go over our past contests, we look at what they judges liked and didn’t like,” journalism coach and academic coordinator Allison Boerger said. “I’ve been really lucky that my students have been attending so many meets, it’s really great when you can tell the stories of the kids who come to practice every week, they do their part and improve themselves.”

In speech and debate, the break signaled the end of a long drought in that program for UIL, despite advancing students to TFA state each year.

“It’s honestly a privilege to represent my team at regionals,” Castro said. “It’s been a hard four years of hard work doing the same thing over and over and it’s finally started to pay off.”

Region will take place April 13 and 14 held in the University of Texas at San Antonio.