Sulphur Springs High School began the Spring UIL season on January 10 in Pine Tree. Recent Rumors had been heard that this year’s collection of UIL teams was looking to be one of the most impressive seen yet.
“We were actually concerned at first, because we had an excellent year last year, and we lost some of our seniors so we weren’t sure how it was going to shape up,” SSHS UIL Coordinator Gina Wilder said. “However, we had really good results from this past weekend. Granted we had some students who weren’t able to be there due to conflicts, but in a hard hitting meet against our district competition such as this, we placed 2nd.”
The 2013-14 school year saw the departure of some very impressive seniors from the UIL competitions. For this new season, Sulphur Springs UIL will be introducing a number of new competitors.
“These new students are doing very well,” Wilder said. “I’m also impressed with some of these freshman and sophomore students as well. For instance, Lydia Burleson, whose a sophomore, this is her first year to compete in UIL. She took first place in Ready Writing. David Guetierrez also holds a lot of promise.”
As with any athletic sport, practice has always been stressed if an athlete wishes to improve. The same can be said for UIL, with practice outside of school being very important to advisors and academic coaches to the UIL students.
“For all of the events, people need to be focused and committed,” Wilder said. “There is only so much the sponsor can do, it takes a lot of outside study. Just this Friday, the Spelling and Vocabulary team went to Taco Bell and had a six hour study and practice session, no sponsor, just the kids. The next day they took first, second, and third individual, and first place team. That is the kind of dedication that we need.”
Out of all the medals that came out of the Pine Tree meet for Sulphur Springs, Ms Gail Herman’s Spelling and Vocabulary, Literary Criticism, and Ready Writing teams had the most success. Spelling and Vocabulary took their awards. Literary Criticism took first, second, and sixth individual with first place team. Finally, Ready Writing took first and third individual.
“With these results, I’m excited about the students that I’m working with,” Herman said. “They are working hard, and I think that we saw the results of all that effort on Saturday. I hope that this is a sign of things to come.”
