Taking 7th place as a school at the 5A Region II UIL Academic Meet on Friday and Saturday at Prosper High School, just one Redhawk will be traveling to Austin for state as senior Parker Butler advanced in debate.

“It’s very humbling,” Butler said. “I’ve been on debate for, this is my fourth year, so I’ve put in a lot of preparation; I really didn’t dream this would’ve happened. I told myself I just want to get passed districts this year, and to see that I’ve advanced to state is something that really I wouldn’t have never guessed starting at the beginning of this year.”

Although he is the only individual going, Butler says it took a team effort for him to advance.

“I think being on a team of lots of people who really care about debate. A lot of people think debate is just a one-person thing, but it’s really not; it’s a team effort and a lot of preparation, a lot of collaboration, a lot of using each other’s resources in order to do the kind of things that we’ve been able to do this entire year. I think it all comes down to our team here at Liberty.”

Beyond Butler’s first place finish in debate, the school had several other students placing in the top six including sophomore Lucas Barr placing fourth in Headline Writing, senior Kevin Li placing fifth in Literary Criticism, junior Vinit Shirvaikar placing sixth in Calculator Applications, and senior Ben Wyatt placing sixth in Computer Science.