Published: July 22, 2008 07:16 am      

TSA students bring back awards

Members of the Woodward Schools chapter of Technology Student Association recently returned from the national TSA conference with several awards in tow, including three first-place finishes, according to Woodward Middle School technology teacher and TSA advisor Darrell Jones.

Eighth grader Julia Benbrook left the conference with first place trophies in the prepared speech and communications challenge events.

Woodward High School senior Wesley Howell was awarded first place in the Desktop Publishing event. Howell also finished third in the imaging technology event and fourth in the promotional graphics event.

Sophomore LeAnn Yadon finished third in the prepared presentation event.

Eighth graders Nathan Jia and Haley Reidlinger finished 10th in the agriculture and biotechnology event.

“We’re really excited about the ones that won the trophies,” Jones said. “They’re certainly deserving.”

We had other events that were hopefuls that we felt like we could’ve done a little better in,” Jones said, though he added that on the whole he was “real excited about the way the kids performed and the way they conducted themselves.”

Jones said a total of 27 students from this chapter attended the event. “We had 18 from the middle school and eight from the high school,” he said. “. . . and I took one kid from Mooreland.”

“All of them had an event, some of them two or three, four or five events to compete in,” Jones said.

The 27 students all went to compete, Jones said. “All of the kids had placed at state and had qualified to go on to nationals,” he said.

Jones said Woodward’s TSA students compete in mini-conferences throughout the school year in the hopes of going to the state and national conferences every year.

“[It is] something we do every year. Last year we went to Nashville, and we’ve been all over the country,” Jones said, including trips in recent years to Tulsa, Denver, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Louisville, Ky. and, this year, to Orlando, Fla.

Jones said students can choose to compete in 35 separate events each year, anything from “parliamentary procedure to...desktop publishing to debate.”

Students were in Orlando for about a week, and had opportunities to see some of the sights while there.

“We went to Cocoa Beach a half a day, went to Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios for a day,” Jones said.

“They were able to play a little bit as well as compete,” he said. “By the results, I think you can see we went to compete.”

“This is the most first place finishes we’ve ever brought home . . . two at the middle school and one at the high school,” Jones said.

“This was an extremely good year,” Jones said. “We’ve done well in the past, and we’ve brought back some top-10 finishes.

“We’ve brought home some first place trophies . . . We’ve fared okay,” he continued, “but this year just seemed to be really good.”