Sophomore Kristen Krobot, who moved to Texas this year, recently came in second place in an all-day journalism competition through her new school, Van Vleck High School.

The contest was held by United Interscholastic League of Texas (UIL), and Krobot’s school had a team that travelled two hours away to Sealy, Texas to create pieces such as editorials, headline writings, news and features.

Krobot participated in feature writing, which is her favorite genre to write.

The way the contest worked is that competitors were given prompts with quotes and additional information, then they were timed while writing the article.

All of the articles were then judged based on how quotes were used and the angle that was chosen.

“I knew I was going to be given a prompt with quotes and information, and then I was given 45 minutes to write a feature article about it… I love writing, and when I was a reporter for the Courier, feature articles were what I enjoyed writing about most. I figured I would give it a try,” said Krobot.

Krobot was on the Courier staff during her freshman year at Susquehannock and learned many valuable writing skills in the class, even if she does not plan to pursue journalism as a career.

“Without my Courier experience, I most definitely would not have been prepared for the contest. Being a reporter for the SHS Courier, I learned how to write articles and be a thoughtful media consumer,” said Krobot. “The content we were given to write about was pretty cut and dry, so to stand out from the others you had to pick a different angle to write about, in the Courier we were always discovering different ways to cover school events and other things going on in the media… I’m really glad I decided to take the class.”

The contest was a new challenge for Krobot because she was timed while writing.

“I think my biggest struggle was just handwriting the piece and being under a time constraint. In the Courier we had up to a week to write an article and have it peer reviewed, so this experience was definitely more stressful,” said Krobot.

Since Krobot came in second, she will advance to the regional portion of the competition, and if she does well there, she will go to the state portion.
“I really don’t know how I’ll do. I’m working on my feature writing on my own, so hopefully I will go farther. This round will be more difficult, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll place in the state contest,” said Krobot.