This year there will be nine students representing Mansfield at the UIL academics state meet on May 4-5 in Austin, more students than Mansfield has had representing in the previous years.

The students who are advancing to state are Simon Fleming-Wood: Poetry and Prose; Bailey Rizzo: Headline Writing; Abby Werner: Feature Writing; Emma Tran, Karen Joseph, Nick Werner and Chase Krueger: Current Events; Juliana Neniel: Social Studies; Andrew Nguyen: Science. Kaylee Krumm qualified as an alternate in Poetry and Prose; Abby Werner qualified as an alternate in Editorial Writing; Andrew Nguyen qualified as an alternate for Number Sense.

“Last year we competed against approximately 70 other schools and competition is tough,” UIL coordinator Dawn Welch said. “In our region we are competing also with schools that specialize in categories such as STEM and the arts.”

Many of the students who made it to state this year are seniors who made it to regionals last year, which was a big motivator in competition for them this year.

“I think more students were able to make state this year because this year because we really cracked down and started studying more,” senior Emma Tran said. “Plus, a large portion of us are seniors so that was motivation because it was our last year to compete. I did compete last year and I think the main difference from last year is that I started meeting up with my group more outside of school to study more. I would recommend people to compete because you can find your different strengths that you may not have realized you had.”

The students attend after school practices, where they put it a lot of work and hours in trying to perfect and build their academic skills in their certain events.

“The reason current events has done so well is because of our coach, Mrs. Foster’s hard work this year and the team works really well together and we put in a lot of work and hours after school,” senior Karen Joseph said. “Personally, I have really enjoyed competing in current events. I have learned a lot about the world around me and its been super fun working with my team and of course winning.”

Advancing to state in UIL is very difficult because of the competitiveness of the events. The students who made it this year have put in a lot of work, and because of that have the opportunity to represent Mansfield in state.

Photo: Jillian Rooney