Two CHS students will advance to the state UIL academic competition following top-notch performances at the Region 1-3A meet held last Friday and Saturday. CHS junior Logan Gatlin placed second in Lincoln-Douglas Debate, while senior Sam Fry placed first in News Writing. Jackie Perez, also a senior, placed fourth, and will be an alternate in the same event.

The state academic UIL meet will be held next Saturday, May 1. It is being conducted in regional hubs, with 15 testing centers located around the state. Students from this area will meet in Amarillo.

The state Speech/Debate competition will also be conducted virtually, using Speechwire.com as the tournament management system and NSDA Classroom/Zoom for video-conferencing. That event is slated for Tuesday and Wednesday, May 25-26.

CHS Speech and Debate Instructor Christy White expressed her pride in Gatlin, for his outstanding dedication and determination in the Lincoln-Douglas Debate.

This year’s resolution was: “In conflict, digital privacy ought to be valued over public security,” White explained. “Logan defended both the affirmative and negative positions with believable conviction, resulting from hours of research and thought.”

“Logan not only manages a busy school and extracurricular schedule, which is an extreme balancing act during in the best of situations,” White said. “He also met the unique challenges of the past year head-on, with only brief consideration, a deep breath, a nod of acceptance, and a refreshing sense of humor—whether it was a McDonald’s being closed at lunch, a snowstorm during shorts and crocs weather, vendors not accepting cash, or a barrage of missteps that came with having a coach who was inexperienced in Lincoln-Douglas debate.”

Since September, White said, Logan has taken on a variety of online platforms, changing rules, regulations, and expectations from a variety of tournament hosts and has remained stable, positive, and state-bound no matter what was thrown at him. “I appreciate Logan and his family more than they will ever know,” she added, “and saying Logan exemplifies the standard to which we should hold our young people would be an understatement. Congratulations, Logan, in qualifying for State in Lincoln-Douglas Debate.”

Fry has been part of the journalism program at CHS since his sophomore year. In 2019, he placed fourth at Regionals in News Writing. He was appointed editor of The Cat’s Tale this year as the senior member of the school newspaper staff.

“Sam is a talented writer and a huge asset to the program,” said CHS Journalism Instructor Jenny Brown. “Jackie is new to journalism this year, and for a newbie, she quickly picked up on the skills needed to be successful. I’m beyond excited for them both. This is a huge accomplishment!”

Brown said that all of her journalism students worked extremely hard during this UIL season. “They practiced and practiced and practiced...and got frustrated, I’m sure, with my relentless nagging about applying the feedback they were constantly receiving,” she said. “But it paid off in the end with two of them placing in News Writing. I could not be more thrilled for them.”

“I have high hopes and expectations for those who plan to continue in the program next year, but the leadership and presence of the seniors will be missed,” Brown concluded.

In addition to News Writing, Sam competed in Regionals in two other events: Editorial Writing and Copy Editing. Other competitors in the regional competition were Karen Aragon (News), Arthur Brown (Editorial), Presley McQuiddy-Gasparlin (Feature Writing), Rachel Leatherman (Feature Writing), and Josh Culwell (Headline Writing).

Altogether, 29 individual CHS students competed in 19 events in last weekend’s regional meet.

Xander Gasparlin and Nathan Wagner both competed in Computer Applications. “Both participated very well and worked through last-minute technology changes for the virtual meet,” CHS UIL Coach Wade Hood said. Heather Sawyer is the Computer Applications UIL coach.

Abi Black, Sam Kendall, and Pam Escarcega competed as a team in the Math competition, with Steve Hutsell as their coach. Hutsell also coached Laney Hood, who competed individually in Number Sense. Hood, Escarcega, and Jaxtyn Valenzuela also competed in Calculator, where Laney Hood placed eighth.

Hood coached his daughter, Laney, in the Science competition, as well as working with the Computer Science team of Logan Gatlin, Geo Esparza, Diego Lugo, and Annabell Gilmour who placed sixth. Abi Black, Ben Bryant, and Nathan Mondragon competed in Social Studies, with Ron Shrader coaching. Shrader also coached Corbin Throgmorton, who competed individually in Current Events.

Ashley Perry and Presley Harper competed in Ready Writing, under the coaching of Amie Riverman, while Leo Avila and Leah Moreno competed in Spelling, with coaching by Dallas Cantu.

Orchestrating the regional UIL academic meet, with all the challenges presented by COVID-19 restrictions, was a fete in itself, said Hood. Many of the regional events were held virtually, he said. “We proctored the exams [here] in the library,” he explained, “and test papers were emailed to the regional director in Abilene.”

“These events were handled very well in Canadian,” Hood noted. “We sent our papers efficiently and correctly. However, 50 tests in each of the 15 events seemed to overload the system from other schools.”

As a result, Hood said, the results were not returned, in some cases, until midweek this week.