Throughout Friday after school and all day Saturday, junior Alejandra Nieto spent time volunteering at the awards booth and competing at the District UIL tournament.
“I really enjoyed volunteering because it was exciting to see the reaction of the people that won when they came to get their award,” Nieto said.
Legacy students placed in 20 out of the 24 academic events offered at the competition.
“It was our first sweepstakes win. We usually get second place. It feels great,” Legacy’s UIL Coordinator Brandon Austin said. “Our 4A district was not very difficult, so I knew 5A would not be too bad. We had more debaters than ever and that gave us more opportunity to get points.”
Students competed individually, as part of a team or both in the events. Many students, such as sophomore Cynthia Garza, competed in multiple events.
“I really felt stressed because I felt as if I had a lot of people depending on me and also because I put pressure on myself and my wants to win each of my events,” Garza said. “I was going mad just thinking about the requirements and personality I had to have for each of my events.”
Like Garza, other students spent time stressing and worrying about how they would do in their events. With 14 LHS students advancing to region as primary competitors and 11 advancing as alternates, Mr. Austin feels our school will do well at the regional competition.
“The students have a great chance at region,” Mr. Austin said.
The journalism and science teams won their respective team points making them district champs for combined points. This was the fourth year jouranlism students won the district title.
“I wasn’t sure about winning this year. There are many journalism powerhouses in our district,” journalism adviser Leland Mallett said. “I respect the advisers from the other schools and know they have great writers. So to win in this district was big for us.”
Students who placed in the top three spots in their event will travel to region compeition in Lubbock April 16.
