Central Heights High School students brought home the district championship trophy at the District 21-3A University Interscholastic League academic competition on March 24 at Stephen F. Austin State University.
Central Heights will compete at the UIL regional meet on April 26 at Blinn College in Brenham.
Senior Luke Davis won the Highest Individual Points award for his first-place medals in Number Sense and Spelling, as well as second place in Mathematics and Calculator Applications.
The Spelling and Vocabulary team, consisting of Davis, junior Ryan Moore, and sophomores Alleigh Howard and Savannah Allums, placed first and will advance to regionals. Davis placed first, Moore placed third and Howard and Allums qualified for regionals with their team.
The Number Sense team, consisting of seniors Luke Davis, Jeffrey Zheng and Skylar Chung, placed first and will advance to regionals. Davis placed first, Zheng, second and Chung, third.
The Science team, made up of senior Lexi McDaniel, juniors Chris Perez, Troy Manto and Calla Rudolph and sophomores Jonah Raychev and Maddie Jeanfavre, placed first, advancing to regionals. Raychev placed second, Perez placed third, and Manto placed sixth. Perez scored highest in the district in Chemistry, making him the regional qualifier for Chemistry, with Raychev and Rudoloph getting the top scores in Chemistry as well. Manto scored the highest out of all the top scorers in Biology, with Raychev and Jeanfavre scoring the top scores as well.
The Mathematics team placed first, qualifying for regional UIL with Skylar Chung coming in first, Luke Davis placing second, Jeffrey Zheng placing third and Jonah Rachev placing fourth and qualifying for the regional team. The full team was composed of seniors Skylar Chung, Luke Davis, Jeffrey Zheng, and Jackson Schexnayder, junior Chris Perez, and sophomore Jonah Rachev.
Calculator Applications placed first, qualifying for regionals. The team was made up of seniors Jeffrey Zheng, Skylar Chung, Luke Davis, and Bethany Craver. Zheng placed first, Davis placed second, Chung placed third, and Craver placed fourth.
The Social Studies team, made up of seniors Molly Bowlin, Nicole Boyett, Bethany Craver, and Connor Dillon and sophomores Ben Poston and Bella Downing, placed first overall as a team, qualifying for the regional meet. Poston placed first and Downing placed second, qualifying for regionals. Boyett placed fifth and Bowlin in sixth.
Senior Leighann Miller placed first in Ready Writing, and senior Lexi McDaniel placed second, qualifying them for the regional meet. Senior Adeline Catron placed fourth, qualifying as the regional alternate.
The journalism team, composed of seniors Autumn Weatherford and Hallie Flynn, sophomores Kate Sparks, Brett Miller, Cayman Brown and Railey Whatley and freshman Tiara Johnson, won second place overall in five journalism events. Brown placed first in News Writing and Flynn placed sixth. In Feature Writing, Weatherford placed second and Flynn placed third, with both qualifying for regionals. Johnson placed fifth and qualified as the regional alternate. In Editorial Writing, Sparks placed first, qualifying for regionals. Flynn placed fourth and qualified as the regional alternate. In Headline Writing, Sparks placed second, qualifying for regionals, and Weatherford placed sixth and qualified as the regional alternate. In Copy Editing, Flynn placed third, qualifying for regionals. Weatherford placed sixth and qualified as the regional alternate.
Accounting placed second overall, with a team composed of seniors Jeffrey Zheng, Skylar Chung, and Logan Brown. Zheng placed sixth, qualifying for the regional alternate. The team, while not immediately qualifying for regionals at the district level, did qualify as the wildcard team for the highest second highest score in the region, which secured their place at the regional meet.
The Current Issues and Events team included seniors Hallie Flynn, Cole Sneed, junior Dayami San Agustin-Sanchez and sophomores Kalen Carrell and Brett Miller. San Augustin-Sanchez placed fourth and Sneed placed sixth, with both qualifying as regional alternates.
The Literary Criticism team, consisting of seniors Christina Farmer, Jeffrey Zheng, Luke Davis, junior Ryan Moore and freshmen Holly Hicks and Ava Graff, placed second overall. Farmer earned third place, advancing to the regional meet and Moore placed sixth and is a regional alternate.
All six extemporaneous speaking competitors, composed of seniors Mason Ash, Hailey Watts, and Jon Mark McClain, junior Dayami San Agustin-Sanchez, and sophomores Kalen Carrell and Allison Johnson, placed in Persuasive and Informative Speaking, sending all of the Central Heights extemporaneous speakers to regionals. Persuasive Speaking saw Carrell placing first, McClain placing second and Johnson placing third. Informative Speaking saw Ash place first, Agustin-Sanchez place second and Watts place third. Outside of extemporaneous speaking, Poetry and Prose speaker Brooke Ayres placed sixth to qualify as a regional alternate.
UIL coaches are the following: Brent Jones, Marcie Splann, Kimberly Mays and Tracie Sullivan.