After a more than a month of studying and practicing their events, several BHS students gladly gave up their Saturday to attend the second UIL invitational of the year, the Fairfield Academic Meet. 

 At this meet, students competed in events of all types.  These ranged anywhere from speaking events like Poetry and LD Debate to Journalism and Ready Writing events to several tests including Spelling and Accounting.  The students’ hard work definitely paid off at this competition, as they brought home many accolades, which in turn contributed to winning the overall number one ranking school at the meet.

    There were several winning teams including a first place Journalism team, a first place Spelling team, and a first place Literary Criticism team.  Other team awards included a second place Social Studies team and a second place Computer Science team.

            Many students gained honors individually as well.  Those students who claimed a gold their specific events included: Kelsey Fahler, LD Debate; Chad Nelson, Computer Science; Morgan Anderson, Spelling and Feature Writing; Ryan Cheek, Ready Writing; Meredith Shaw, Literary Criticism and Headline Writing; and Nancy Ramirez, Poetry.

            Creagor Elsom claimed second place in Number Sense, Kaila Grissett took sixth in Spelling, and DeAnne Sterling achieved third place in Accounting.  Ryan Cheek won third in Social Studies and Ethan Dujay placed fourth in Feature Writing.  In Current Issues, Morgan Anderson took third place, Jon Cates took fourth, and Jordan Nix took sixth place.  In LD Debate, Andrew Roberts achieved second place and Todd Davis won fourth.  Kelsey Fahler took fourth place in News Writing and Ethan Dujay took fifth.  In Literary Criticism, Ryan Cheek placed second and Martha Zimmerman claimed third.  Finally, Jami Davis claimed second place in Editorial Writing and Andrew Roberts claimed third.

            “Hard work most always pays off, as it did for us Saturday,” BHS teacher and UIL coach Jill Henson said.  “Our hope is that the payoff will be even greater at district competition.  I am excited about it and so proud of the students.”

            After these wins, students are excited and working harder than ever.  They will continue to travel to other invitationals and academic meets in order to prepare for the district competition in April.  They hope to continue their winning streak and hold up the popular saying around the school- “Fear the Bison!”