Cy Creek student wins first place at Spring Academic Meet

May 26, 2009 — Cypress Creek High School sophomore Christine Nguyen won first place in the Newswriting competition at the UIL Spring Academic Meet, held May 25 in Austin.

Nguyen competed against the top 12 5A newswriters from around the state, which included three winners from each region. The writers received a story prompt that provided background information and quotes from various sources and used it to draft a news article within 45 minutes.

A judging panel made up of journalism teachers from around the state evaluated whether the students determined the most timely information, wrote a lead that would grab readers’ attention, wove quotes with the background information and developed the story in a logical way.

To reach state, Nguyen placed third at the district competition at Cypress Ridge High School and third at the regional competition at Baylor University.

“The entire newspaper staff and I are incredibly proud of Christine,” Cypress Creek journalism teacher Jen Sansbury said. “In her first year on staff, she has proven herself as a newswriting natural. She has been our go-to person whenever news breaks on campus, such as the construction-related flooding in the fall and the lightning strike last month.”

The American Society of Newspaper Editors recently featured Nguyen’s story about Cypress Creek’s transformer being struck by lightning on its weekly national edition of the best stories from online high school newspapers it hosts at my.hsj.org.