UIL Spring Contests Underway!
NHS Wins District Academic Contests!
April 06, 2011
Each year after spring break the Newcastle school schedule goes into overdrive! You just don’t understand – I mean super overdrive! Track meets happen every Thursday, Friday and/or Saturday with golf tournaments on Mondays and Tuesdays when possible. Academic UIL contests are scheduled for two full days and often on into the evening. And then there are the One-Act Play contests. That wouldn’t be a problem for bigger schools, but for smaller schools like Newcastle, all those activities involve nearly all of the same kids over and over again! There is no doubt that during these weekdays of spring activities, our school personnel spend more time with our students than their parents do. The amazing side note to all of these activities is the fact that our school has been able to maintain our exemplary status despite the huge time demands for extracurricular activities.
Coach Wilkinson has been working with the track teams and they have shown improvement each week and building up to the district meet scheduled for April 8th. Coach Bullock is also working with the golf team members and they will be competing in the district golf tournament, April 5th.
One-Act play competition kicked off Saturday, March 26th in Throckmorton with our district’s zone competition between – Woodson, Throckmorton, Paint Creek and Newcastle. Woodson’s play was titled, “The Phoney Physician”, Throckmorton did “Crimes from the Heart” and Paint Creek did a play entitled “Mr. Flannery’s Ocean”. The Newcastle theater group under the direction of Kem Forbus did a play written by Ken Ludwig called “Moon Over Buffalo”. It is a hilarious comedy/farce set in the Erlanger Theatre in Buffalo, New York around 1953. The Newcastle students did an outstanding job and had the entire audience laughing and chuckling throughout the performance. Newcastle High School and Paint Creek High School plays have advanced to the district competition which will also be held at Throckmorton on March 30th. Several Newcastle students received honors at the zone competition with Justin Bohannon being selected as the “Best Actor” along with Jacob Forbus and Amy Clayborn on the All-Star cast. Courtney Bailey and Jenna Evans were named to the Honorable Mention All-Star cast and Shae Bohannon was named to the All-Star crew.
The district 12-A one-act play competition took place Wednesday, March 30th and once again the Newcastle play, “Moon Over Buffalo” advanced to the next level – area competition – along with Rule High School! This time the NHS thespians defeated Knox City High School and Paint Creek High School. Jacob Forbus was named “Best Actor” during the district competition and Courtney Bailey and Justin Bohannon were named to the All-Star cast. Shane Potter and Amy Clayborn were named to the Honorable Mention All-Star cast! Courtney Spitzer was recognized as an outstanding crew member.
The area competition was held Tuesday, April 5th, at the Graham High School auditorium and the Newcastle Thespians went up against two bigger schools from 11-man football districts – Electra and Munday – as well as fellow 6-man district member - Rule. Advancing to the regional competition in Abilene will be the two larger schools – Electra and Munday. Both of these schools did a wonderful job and presented very poignant, dramatic plays about human suffering and the conflict people experience with doing what is politically correct and what is humanely correct. When the results were revealed it was obvious that our area judge preferred more deliberate plays with a moral message rather than fast paced comedies such as NHS’s “Moon Over Buffalo”. Jacob Forbus and Jenna Evans were both named to the All-Star cast and Courtney Bailey was named to the Honorable Mention All-Star cast.
The first day of UIL academic competition was held in Knox City this week and by the end of the day Newcastle High School holds a strong grasp on first place. Here are some of the results that had been released. Haily Kramer placed first, Kimberly Bell fourth and Latisha Short finished fifth in the computer applications contests. Newcastle students – Shane Potter, Dakota Lowe, Cody Lowe, Shot Lowe, David Brockman and Jacob Forbus - won the science team competition with Shane Potter taking first place with top scores in both biology and physics and Dakota Lowe placed third in science. The Newcastle accounting team of Jerry Shields, Brandon Peterson and Charitye Lowe also placed first with Jerry Shields taking the individual first place medal, Brandon Peterson took fourth and Charitye Lowe placed sixth. For the first time, the “literary criticism” team – Dakota Lowe, Jacob Forbus, Amy Clayborn and Shane Potter – walked away with first place honors. Dakota Lowe was the literary criticism first place finisher and Jacob Forbus earned a fifth place award! Final student placing during the first day of UIL academic competition was Jerry Shields placing fifth in the social studies contest.
Newcastle High School students continued their march toward the district championship Thursday by amassing over 400 points! This is the first year in a long time that Newcastle High School has actually won the district UIL academic championship. This means that several of our students will be advancing to the regional tournament which will be held on Friday and Saturday, April 15th and 16th! Individual awards included the following:
Jerry Shields – Accounting 1st place; Current Issues and Events 1st place; and Social Studies 5th place
Dakota Lowe – Literary Criticism 1st place; Mathematics 1st place; Number Sense 2nd place; Science 3rd place; Computer Science 5th place
Haily Kramer – Computer Applications 1st place; Calculator Applications 1st place; Editorial Writing 2nd place; News Writing 2nd place; Mathematics 4th place
Shane Potter – Science 1st place; top biology and physics score; Calculator Applications 2nd place; Computer Applicatins 4th place
Jacob Forbus – Persuasive Speaking 1st place; Literary Criticism 5th place
Brandon Bailey – Informative Speaking 1st place
Latisha Short – Feature Writing 2nd place; News Writing 3rd place; Computer Applications 5th place
Cody Lowe – Mathematics 2nd place
Kimberly Bell – Computer Applications 4th place
Courtney Bailey – Persuasive Speaking 2nd place; Feature Writing 3rd place
Jenna Evans – Calculator Applications 4th place; Feature Writing 5th place; News Writing 5th place
Shot Lowe – Poetry 6th place
Charitye Lowe – Poetry 5th place; Accounting 6th place
Brandon Peterson – Accounting 4th place
Newcastle students also took several first place team awards. Accounting, Calculator Applications, Literary Criticism, Mathematics and Science teams gained huge points with first place victories!
The Newcastle Academic Teams are coached and managed by Kem Forbus and Courtney Bozeman with assistance from subject specialists – Christy Eli, Sherri Blassingame, Cathy Creel, Nancy Clayborn and Brad Wilkinson
