For the first time in over 23 years, the 62 Edna High School students who represented for the UIL District Academic Meet took the bag and became champions, with a whopping lead of 194 points. The team comprised of high school students ranging from freshmen to seniors, and who come from all walks of life.
This is Sarah Mercer Bradley’s fifth year as Edna’s UIL academic coordinator, and also teaches forensic science and dual credit psychology. She is the coordinator and the glue of the team, not to mention the coaches as well.
“Six years ago we were in eighth place, fifth place, third place, and then we were second place three years in a row,” she explained. “So when the year started the kids felt like it was their year, and they believed they had their name attached to that district title. We increased our points exponentially and had 12 individual district championships and six different teams.”
And their faith honored them: Bradley said they knew it was possible and waited until the end of the ceremony because they wanted to receive the plaque.
Upon winning, everyone wanted to hold it, take pictures with it, and they all intend to sign their names on the back of the plaque.
Preparation for a win like this has been years in the making for Edna, and it starts as early as elementary school.
Brandie Roe, Assistant Superintendent, said they’ve been focused on this win for years.
“We started with them young, in elementary and junior high, and made sure the coaches were invested in it as well,” she said. “Sarah is outstanding at making sure the coaches and teams had what we needed before competitions.”
Bradley nodded. “In years past we’ve had the kids, but they hadn’t bought in yet, and we didn’t have the coaches.
So these kids are going down in history for unseating the top spot in the UIL Academic Meet.”
The students who moved up to Regionals will compete this weekend in New Braunfels, and Bradley said this is the first year they have the highest number of people attending: 24 students. The state competition will be held during the last week of school.
“It goes all the way down to elementary, the numbers were bigger as well,” Bradley said.
“We had 100 elementary students competing this year.”
Another thing the coaches focused on was the alternates, and reminding them not to give up, due to a good number of seniors leaving. Then the teams wouldn’t start from scratch. Something else Bradley focused on was the top 10 in the class: in years past the smartest kids in the class weren’t on teams, so a little nudge in their direction and they felt confident enough to join a team or two.
“Looking to the next year we told the younger ones, ‘you are going to be the leaders next year,’ and we have a great underclassmen group ready to take over,” Bradley said.
“And we’re going to be in a new district next year so we’re trying to be prepared for that and find out where our competition is.”
The students practiced in the morning, after school, had some practice time during the day, and they put in a ton of work at home. Bradley said she even had students come to her for more practice tests.
“Our goal in not to be a one-and-done, so we’re ready to see what the new district will bring,” Bradley said.
Roe said Bradley is a huge piece to the win. “Plus the kids—I can’t say enough about them—and to see their faces when our name was announced was priceless. We are an academic school and we can win an academic meet, we’ve proven that now.”
For 23 years Industrial ISD has held first place, and sat in second place this year with 398 points. Edna finished with 592 points.
Coaches: Mary Williams, Anthony Norman, Sarah Mercer Bradley, Robin Hicks, Kensey Allen, Mark Ruiz, Michael Schrader, Rebecca Stedje, Robin Palacios, April Wittnebert, Elyse Bauerle, Betsy Thompson, Kenneth Osore, Dustin Lampen, Aldric Edwards, Irma Gomez, Shannon Beaird, Matthew Beaird.
UIL Categories: Ready Writing, Number Sense, Prose, Poetry, Copy Editing, Current Events and Issues, Calculator Applications, Informative Speaking, Persuasive Speaking, Accounting, Spelling and Vocabulary, News Writing, Science, Feature Writing, Social Studies, Editorial Writing, Mathematics, Headline Writing, Literary Criticism, Lincoln- Douglas Debate, Computer Science, CX Debate, Barbara Jordan Essay, Theatrical Design, Congressional Debate, One Act Play Cast and Crew.
