Buffalo High claims second consecutive District UIL Championship

District Champs! These Buffalo High School students comprise the UIL Academic Team which has earned first place in District 21-AA competion. Eighteen students also qualified for the Regional Meet on April 24th and 25th. Van'Go'photo For the second consecutive year, Buffalo High School won the UIL academic competition hosted Tuesday and Saturday at BHS. The students of Buffalo compiled 465 points to win the meet. Centerville was second with 390 points. Groveton came in third with 228 points, and Onalaska was a distant fourth with 115 points. New Waverly was fifth with 109 points. Also competing were Trinity (67 points); Corrigan-Camden (59 points); and Anderson Shiro (8 points).

The quest for the district title actually started in February with the Cross-X Debate. Buffalo's team of Meredith Shaw and Ethan Dujay placed third at the meet to earn the alternate slot to the state CX meet. Chad Nelson and Ryan Cheek came in fourth in the contest. These students earned 22 points which Buffalo

carried into Saturday's contest.

The One Act Play advanced from Zone and again from District on Monday. Fifty-four points were accumulated with the advancing play as well as individual awards. Nancy Ramirez was named Best Actress and Chad Nelson was named Best Actor. Ryan Cheek, Ethan Du- jay, and Kirk Ringland were named to the All-Star Cast. Meredith Shaw, Morgan Anderson, and the ensemble of Kirby McNair, Dustin Mc- Cabe and Jessy Perez were named Honorable-Mention All-Star Cast. Becca Dolling was chosen All-Star Crew.

Writing events were held Tuesday to allow for grading. The journalism staff swept the competition and earned 124 points from individual finishes along with ten points for Top Journalism Team. Buffalo finished 1-2-3 in news writing with Kelsey Fahler, Brooke Trahan and Tristan Brewer. Feature Writing was also a 1-2-3 sweep with Meredith Shaw, Morgan Anderson, and Tristan Brewer. Andrew Roberts, Morgan Anderson, and Jami Davis placed second, third, and fifth, respectively in Editorial Writing while Anderson and Shaw copped second and third in Headlines. Andrew Roberts placed fourth in Ready Writing, the only non-journalism writing event. The top three finishers in each event will advance to the regional meet. The fourth place finishers will serve as alternate. First place teams also advance to the next level.

Honors came through fast and furiously on Saturday as Buffalo students continued to strive for the top trophy. Creagor Elsom placed third in the Number Sense competition and anchored a first place team of Ethan Dujay, De'Anne Sterling and Becca Dolling.

The Social Studies team of Ryan Cheek, Ashley Elsom, Brianna Weaver and Kirk Ringland took top team as well as the top four places in the competition.

The Literary Criticism team also took top team honors. Brooke Trahan placed second individually and Meredith Shaw finished fourth. Ryan Cheek earned sixth place. Martha Zimmerman was also on the team.

Buffalo's Accounting team was second overall. De'Anne Sterling finished fourth, and will be an alternate to regional. Amy Terry, Robin Ansley and Ashley Elsom made up the team.

The Speech team, made up of Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Prose Interpretation, Poetry Interpretation, Persuasive Speaking and Informative Speaking, came in second. Andrew Roberts and Kelsey Fahler advanced to the regional meet with second and third place finishes. Meredith Shaw and Sarah Wheary will compete at regional in Prose Interpretation by way of second and third place finishes, and Stephanie Stanton earned fifth place points. Nancy Ramirez will compete in the Poetry Interpretation contest at regional after a third place finish. CJ Menefee and Taylor Ayers finished fifth and sixth, respectively. Jonathon Cates was the sixth place Informative Speaker. Also competing on the speech team were Christian Negron, LD debate; Stephanie Stanton, Ethan Dujay, Micah Burnside-Jones, Christian Negron and Curtis Yates in Persuasive and Informative Speaking.

Chad Nelson anchored the second place Computer Science team with a fourth place individual performance. Chelsea Lord, Michael Cardenas, and Calvin Young rounded out the Computer Science team.

The Spelling team came in second. Morgan Anderson and Karlee Ferguson placed fifth and sixth, respectively. Kaila Grissett and Jordan Nix were members of the spelling team.

Deniz Yalein won the Mathematics competition and helped Buffalo win second place team honors. Tak Jumsai, Martha Zimmerman and Michael Morelock comprised the Mathematics team.

Kirk Ringland placed fourth in Current Issues and Events. The team of Chris Sweeney, Morgan Anderson, and Jacob Rodell just missed the second place slot in the team competition.

In all, Buffalo qualified 18 students for the Regional Meet at Tyler Junior College April 24th and 25th. These 18 students will compete in 28 events: Meredith Shaw, (Feature Writing, Headline Writing, Prose Interpretation, and Literary Criticism); Morgan Anderson (Feature Writing, Headline Writing and Editorial Writing); Ryan Cheek (Social Studies and Literary Criticism); Brooke Trahan (Literary Criticism and News Writing); Kelsey Fahler (LD Debate and News Writing); Andrew Roberts (LD Debate, Editorial Writing and alternate for Ready Writing); Kirk Ringland (Social Studies and alternate in Current Issues and Events); Tristan Brewer (Feature Writing and News Writing); De'Anne Sterling (Number Sense and alternate in Accounting); Martha Zimmerman (Literary Criticism); Deniz Yalein (Mathematics); Creagor Elsom (Number Sense); Nancy Ramirez (Poetry Interpretation); Sarah Wheary (Prose Interpretation); Brianna Weaver (Social Studies); Ethan Dujay (Number Sense); and Becca Dolling (Number Sense).

Coaches and students are to be commended for their efforts.