Industrial’s lone state qualifier for academics, Abigail Phillips, placed second in 3A news writing at the UIL state competition in Austin at the University of Texas.
And she’s only a sophomore, so there’s no telling what she’ll accomplish in her future. “It’s really cool to be a state medalist as a sophomore and the only one for my school,” she said. “Everyone (at UIL) that I talked to there was a junior or a senior, so when I told them I’m a sophomore, their response was, ‘wow!’” In addition to news writing, Abigail also competed in feature writing and headline writing at the state level. Although she wasn’t planning on competing in more than news, her coach Lisa Bullock nudged her over time and convinced her.
UIL
“I competed up to Regionals in news writing last year, and I’d say it’s definitely my best event,” she commented.
“I fell in love with news because it’s black and white, but it still allows you to be creative, and news is a little bit of both. The facts are black and white, but you get to be creative on how you integrate the quotes and twist the story.”
Bullock shared her thoughts on Abigail’s work and her progress in such a short time.
“It’s exciting to think about the future of journalism when I read her stories. She examines all elements of a story with an inquisitive, insightful and balanced approach,” the coach said. “You can just see the way her mind quickly processes the story, finds the most important information and expertly pieces together the facts and details with seamless transitions and effective quotes.”
Abigail prepared for the competition by doing tons of practice prompts Bullock had collected over the years—a file cabinet filled to the brim with practice prompts.
She also wrote sports articles about the Cobra football games for the Jackson County Herald- Tribune in 2025.
Not to mention, even though Bullock already left for another teaching position in Victoria, she still coached Abigail over the phone and email, giving her tips and answering her questions.
“(Bullock) She’s an amazing coach, I couldn’t have done it without her. I’ve also learned so much from my teammates this year and last year, especially Whitney Kurtz and Kaylee Cooper,” Abigail said. “They’ve both been state medalists in the past, and they were right there with answers, tips and pointers, even though it meant me being in competition with them. They were always cheering me on even if that meant me doing better than them.”
It appears that Kurtz and Cooper’s behavior influenced Abigail and the way she works with others on the Cobra journalism team. Bullock spoke about the way she would assist anyone without hesitation.
“She’s a team player— not in it for herself.
I could always count on her to check in with other journalists and keep them up-to-date with topics, stories, contests and practice details.”
Abigail’s state prompt was about a school security system which had been under false alarm lockdowns 11 times in a semester, due to the teachers’ buttons being extra-sensitive, therefore wasting lots of class time. Abigail’s approach was to look for the most current information first, which was that the police department held a safety meeting with the staff.
“From there it was the transition/quote formula like it always is,” she said.
The competitors had a time limit of 45 minutes, and Abigail would try and leave five minutes free to edit and check for misspellings, grammar and flow. One could either choose to write on notebook paper or use a laptop.
By the end of the state competition, Abigail learned of what she earned.
“I was honestly shocked. The whole goal was just making it to state, so to medal as a sophomore was amazing.”
Abigail is the daughter of Aaron and Jill Phillips. In addition to her UIL involvement, she is a member of the cross-country team, varsity cheer, Student Council, National Honor Society, Fellowship of Christian Students, 4-H, and was named Duchess on the Queen Victoria Court several months ago in February.
