Students compete in annual Spanish competition

Hundreds of high school students from eastern New Mexico and west Texas attended Friday’s 25th Annual Festival Romanico at Eastern New Mexico University for Spanish-speaking competitions.

They competed against each other in artwork, skits, poetry, essays and for the grand finale, a talent show.

Festival Romanico was started 25 years ago as a day dedicated to the romance languages of French and Spanish.

Bovina High took top honors with 43 points. Lovington High School was second with 39 points and Portales was fourth with 13 points.

The talent show capped off the day’s events in the afternoon with students competing in dance contests and musical instrument competitions.

Senior Brenda Ortiz and sophomore Daniel Perez danced to “Song de la Negra” and captured third place in the talent show.

“I was very nervous,” Ortiz said. “I liked watching the people the most from all of the activities.”

Bovina sophomore Isaac Tavera was competing for the second year.

“It was great to come in first place,” Tavera said. “We finished in second place last year by two points.”

Portales juniors Orlando Shelly and Lourdes Gutierrez said it was the biggest crowd for which they have performed.

“I liked all of the performances,” Gutierrez said. “The Festival Romanico was great. It was nice to have so many Hispanics come here and I enjoyed meeting other people.”