March 27 marked the end of the UIL district meets. Students from all over NEISD competed in academic events to try and make it to Regionals which is this Saturday. Only the top three of every even are accepted into Regionals and the places four to six are runner-ups. MacArthur came out of the meet with fourteen places. Eleven singular events and three team events.
Accounting: Lorena Lalaj (1st)
Accounting: Sheyenne Neely (6th)
Calculator Application: Barrett Brown (2nd)
Feature Writing: Malena Earls (4th)
Literary Criticism: Thomas James (6th)
Poetry Interpretation: Chloe Grams (6th)
Ready Writing: Kayla Chupp (1st)
Ready Writing: Kennedy Hagan (4th)
Ready Writing: Alex Lemire (5th)
Spelling and Vocabulary: Jordan Prichard (2nd)
Spelling and Vocabulary: Kayla Chupp (4th)
Team Events
Accounting: 1st Place
Literary Criticism: 2nd Place
One-Act Play: 1st Place
“I feel great about placing,” junior Barrett Brown said. “I’ve been preparing for several months by practicing old tests and learning newer, faster shortcuts. I have been competing for several years, and I really enjoy competing in Academic UIL.”
Students can start competing in UIL as early as middle school, but most tend to begin competing later in their academic careers, like seniors Kennedy Hagan and Lorena Lalaj who both started competing this year.
“I feel really proud bout placing 4th overall out of around 27 people,” Hagan said. “I’m really grateful for Mr.Davidson pushing me to compete this year”
To prepare Hagan tries to stay up to date on current events to us in essays for the events.
“I prepared by compiling different poetry pieces to fit the categories that would be performed in the meet,” sophomore Chloe Grahams said. “The categories were This is Me and This Speaks to Me. I took the different pieces of poetry and strung them together to fit the subjects, and then I read them out loud with different emotions to practice. It was like solo acting without the memorization.”
All the preparation becomes worth it when some of these students get to go on to regionals.
“Not only was this my second year at Mac, but it was also my first time ever hearing about UIL competitions. I had no idea of what I was putting myself into,” Lalaj said. “I never thought I was going to win anything at all in the first place. I am happy that I decided to participate because I found something I am passionate about, Accounting.”
