To learn more about UIL competition and view PTISD UIL Participating Team Websites click here.

The hard work and dedication of these seniors have paid off with over 2 million dollars in offers of scholarships. Pine Tree graduates will be represented in major colleges from the east coast to the west coast. Members of this class will serve their country in 4 different branches of the US military. Several graduates have committed to studies abroad while many others will attend major universities across the great state of Texas. The majority of the members of the class of 07 will continue their education here in the East Texas Region taking advantage of the many outstanding colleges right here in East Texas.
2007 Senior Awards Program (pdf)

Pine Tree High School senior, Diya Sikka has been named as National Merit Scholar in the 2007 National Merit Scholarship Program. Katelyn Kennedy was named as a commended scholar in September. They were awarded by maintaining high academic performance and earning SAT scores that confirmed their earlier qualifying test performance.

Hunter Decker earned the distinctive position of All State Trombone. Hunter participated as a member of the 4A All-State Band in San Antonio, Texas.

Congratulations to Sarah Gillette for placing in the Texas All-State Choir. Sarah participated as a member of the 4A All-State Choir.

Pine Tree cross-examination debate winners were celebrating at a recent competition event. Lacie Richardson and Nathan Brazell earned 1st place, state qualifier awards. Aaron Galloway and Brandon Kimble earned 4th place awards. "This is the first time in over a decade Pine Tree has qualified a C-X team for state competition," says team sponsor Jennifer White.

Pine Tree High School Theatre was celebrating at the recent UIL One Act Play ~ 4A Regional competition held on Thursday, April 12, 2007. The One Act Company, performing, The Angelina Project, has earned the opportunity to compete in the State One Act Competition to be held May 3-5, held in the Bass Performance Hall on the UT campus in Austin, Texas. This is the second year for a company from PTHS directed by Travia Steward, to compete at the state level. “Kentucky Fire in the Hole,” was honored as first in the State of Texas in the 2005 State One-Act Play contest sponsored by the University Interscholastic League. For more information visit the High School Theatre/One Act Web Page.

Pine Tree High School Art Department is to be congratulated for awards presented at the annual Visual Arts Scholastic Event (VASE) in April 2007. At the Area competition, 7 students were winners out of 482 competitors. 32 students from Pine Tree HS competed, and 28 earned top honors. The 7 area winners moved on to the state competition held at University of Houston at Clear Lake, the following week. These seven were judged again with 1,500 other competitors from around the state. Three of these students earned medals at the state level.
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Twirling their way to victory, they're national champions and they're right here in East Texas. They are the Pine Tree elite majorettes and they won first place at nationals this weekend in San Antonio. Whatever you thought you knew about twirling, think again. That's because these girls just make it look easy. "There's a lot of difficulty to it, it's not just moving around, you have a baton in your hand that you have to keep up with," says Pine Tree High School Senior Allison Watson. Of course there are the basics and more advanced tricks. But it's seems to be a dying art form, a sport that doesn't get a whole lot of attention.
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Clay Baker overpowered his opposition to win the Class 4A discus state title at Mike A. Myers Stadium on Friday. Baker's best throw was his fifth attempt, which went for 189 feet, 3 inches. Baker also finished second in the shot put with a throw of 55 feet, 9.25 inches to make it a day of silver and gold. Pine Tree freshman Vanessa Alderidge also earned a medal; she finished third in the 100 meters with a time of 11.93 seconds. Pine Tree's Katie Abner finished sixth in the girls' pole vault with a height of 11 feet, 6 inches. Due to their efforts Pine Tree came in Eighth in state at the meet!
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Jarrod Simpson-Elite
Matt Hughes-1st Team
Clay Baker-2nd Team
Colin Pennington-Honorable Mention

Texas Assoc. of Soccer Coaches: Jace Estes Tim Russell
Academic All-State: Nathan Lo

The boys 200 Freestyle Relay swim team qualified for the state meet to be held in Austin on February 16 and 17. The team includes Senior Micah Cummings, Senior Scott Poland, Junior Matthew Lau, and Sophomore Mark Cummings. These swimmers are the first Pine Tree swimmers to qualify for state competition in swimming in four years, but the state level is not unprecedented for Pine Tree. Lindsey Martin, a 2006 Pine Tree graduate, won the 4A one-meter diving award. Learn more at the Swim Team webpage.

Pine Tree walked away with quite a few medals, including first place in the Super Quiz Relay at a recent Acadec Competition. The Academic Decathlon™ is a team competition wherein students match their intellects with students from other schools. Students are tested in ten categories:

Art, Economics, Essay, Interview, Language and Literature, Mathematics, Music, Science, Social Science, and Speech.

Gold, Silver and Bronze medals are awarded for individual events and total scores. Winning teams advance through the local, regional, and state levels of competition. The state champions compete at the national finals.
Learn more at the High School Acadec web page .

Congratulation to the following who placed in the state competition with their projects in welding and auto collision and repair.
Welding: Nathan Cardino 2nd
Kimberly Russo 1st
Austin Walker 1st
Ryan Thomas 1st
Korey Tueller 1st

Auto Collision and Repair: Hector Calixto 1st
Veronica Moreno-Castenada 1st
Ross Johnson 1st
Austin Smeltzer 1st

Editor Carol Root and Assistant Editor, Katie Rawlings have been nominated for Quill and Scroll International Honorary Society for High School Journalists. To be a member a students must be a junior or senior, in the upper 1/3 of their class and must show outstanding work in journalism. Both students have worked on the school paper the last two years and have also had published article in the Longview News-Journal. Both students have won awards for stories and UIL events.

Those attending the state journalism convention include seniors Lacie Richardson, Samantha Horton and Jessica Bray and freshman Sidney Boggs, sophomores Sean Pepper, Meagan Pierce, Bailee Niles and Jamie Barr.
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The Cutlass school newspaper has received the Gold Medalist Award from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (Columbia University in New York City). The university awards the gold, silver and bronze awards to high schools all over the United States. Judges critiqued Cutlass’ from the 2005-2006 school year.

East Texans Against Lawsuit Abuse (ETALA) announced the winners of its third annual essay contest for area sixth and seventh graders. Students from both grades who penned the top two essays about “personal responsibility” will receive $500 and $100 savings bonds, respectively. This year’s winners include first place sixth grader, Megan McNaney of Pine Tree Middle 5/6 School and seventh grade first place winner, Cassie Weaver of Pine Tree Middle 7.
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Carolyn Leatherman, First Place
Chiquetlyn Howard, Second Place
Carly Hayworth, Honorable Mention
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The winners of the third annual Pine Tree Intermediate Writing Contest were recognized May 10th at the PTA meeting. Walker Dale, Anahi Reyes, Shylah Moss,Alyssa Alexander,Kiasi Young, Hayden Hodges Lexi Schepleng, Jacob Jones, Zachary Barrett, Makenzie Taylor, Masson Holder, and Taylor Tamez

PTJH 8th Grader Kristin Burns won the 2006-2007 Veteran Essay Contest. As a tribute to veterans who served or are currently serving in the United States armed forces, the Veterans Services Department of East Texas Workforce Center in Tyler recently sponsored their annual essay contest. Pine Tree 8th grader Kristin Burns won the first prize of a $50 gift card with her moving essay. All compositions were titled “What Being a Military Veteran Means to Me” and all entries were created by 7th and 8th graders. The winning essays are tributes to veterans and were posted in the East Texas Workforce Center during November.

During the summer of 2007, the ArtsView Children's Theatre summer academy "You Design It" features six new plays which were the top winners of a communitywide playwright contest. Fifteen plays from area students were submitted for consideration. Winning entries for the 2007 contest include "CSI Cafeteria," by the team of Kristin Ritch, Andria Dikes and Courtney Tirrell; and "The Search for Cloey," by the team of Hayden Howell, Skai Sevoy and Emily Oliver - all students of Pine Tree ISD.
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