Making History: Senior Becomes First Midway Student to Achieve State Recognition in Citizen Bee

In a repeat trip to the Texas Citizen Bee competition in Austin this spring, Midway High School senior Grace Collins won third place and became the first Midway student to place at the state level in Citizen Bee.

Grace has competed in Citizen Bee since her sophomore year, and this was her second appearance at the state competition after winning regionals in March.

The Texas Citizen Bee is a statewide civic education program and competition hosted by the State Bar of Texas consisting of two rounds—written and oral—testing students’ knowledge of American history, civic values and skills, and current events. The top 10 students with the highest scores on a written test move on to the oral rounds in which every student answers one question from each of the following categories: People/Events, Documents and Supreme Court Cases, and Constitution.

“With a nearly perfect written score and a perfect score in the oral round, she was named the regional champion,” Midway High School teacher and Grace’s Citizen Bee sponsor Sarah Baranowski said. “She then competed in Austin against 19 other region champions, and after a perfect oral score and a high written score, she was named third place in the state.”

Grace’s achievement holds a special significance for Midway as she is the only student in the school’s history to earn this type of recognition at the state level.

“Grace works very hard to be successful in all of her endeavors,” Baranowski said. “I have enjoyed being able to see Grace grow as a leader throughout her high school career and know she will be successful in her future endeavors.”