Tayte to State

Tayte Ward is the type that can succeed in whatever she wants to do in life. As a high school student, she’s keeping her options open.

Earlier in her high school career, she worked at a veterinarian’s office in the hopes of one day becoming a veterinarian. She changed her mind and opted to become a journalist.

That may be the way for Ward to go as she won the regional title in late April and will compete at State this weekend, being the first UIL Journalism candidate from Jacksboro High School in recent memory.

Ward’s UILsponsor Hillary Deffebach said Tayte is “the most gifted writer she had ever met.”

“I’ve never coached copy editing but I said last year I’m signing up Tayte Ward and she’s going to state”,Deffebach said.

She wanted to compete in UIL Journalism last year but COVID reared its ugly head. She finished second in district competition at Midwestern State via tiebreaker. The top three from each district to attend regional competition.

Regional competition, which had teams all the way from Alpine and Canadian competing, was held online via Zoom. It consisted of three rounds including a tiebreaker

One round was which word fits best into a sentence. Second round included editing sentences to find the four errors in each.

Ward said one of the things she likes about journalism, where she plans on focusing on newspaper journalism is “it being a great opportunity to influence what people think.”

She plans on taking her talents to Texas Tech and working on the paper there.