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News and Updates
NEW: Changes and
updates for 2026
Houstonfest Scholarships
Scholarships at State
Houstonfest history
Teacher-to-teacher tips
Tips for Pair Discussion
Arrival at Kingwood High School
Lunch options
State promo video contest
Daily log of changes to
State-qualifier list
Contest
promo video #1 (students from one school tell why they
love contest)
Contest promo
video #2 (one student tells why she loves contest)
Contest promo
video #3
(hilarious 2024 State-winning submission from our own Klein Oak High School!)
Photo gallery
Important Dates
Mon., Jan. 12, 2026, 4:00 p.m.: Application for
transportation grants from the Houston Saengerbund opens (if grants are approved
for 2026); link will be sent to teachers.
Fri., Jan. 16, 2026, 11:59 p.m.: Application for
transportation grants from the Houston Saengerbund closes (if grants are
approved for 2026).
Wed., Jan. 21, 2026, 11:59
p.m.: Houstonfest registration
spreadsheet due for regular price of $15/student (payment does not have
to be mailed until 1/28).
Wed., Jan. 28, 2026, 11:59
p.m.: Houstonfest registration spreadsheet
due
for late price of $20/student. Deadline to postmark Houstonfest payment.
Sat., Jan. 31, 2026, 9:00 a.m.: Submission of entries in the 7 virtual Houstonfest events due (get link to
Google Form from your teacher).
Tue., Feb. 3, 2026, 11:59 p.m.: Remote
judging of the 7 virtual Houstonfest events ends.
Wed., Feb. 4, 2026, 10:00 p.m.: Houstonfest changes (adds,
drops, substitutions) due. After this point, no more changes will be allowed.
Sat., Feb. 7, 2026:
Houstonfest,
Kingwood High School, Houston.
Fri., Feb. 13, 2026, 11:59 p.m.: State
online registration due for "early bird" price of $15/student (payment does not
have to be mailed until 2/21).
Wed., Feb. 18, 2026, 11:59 p.m.: State
online registration due
for
regular price of
$20/student (payment does not have to be mailed until 2/21).
Sat., Feb. 21, 2026, 9:00 a.m.: Submission of entries in the 7 virtual State events due (get
the link to a
Google Form from your teacher). Also,
Mary El-Beheri Memorial Scholarship and Sandra Dieckman GTHS Memorial
Scholarship
applications due (to submit the application, get the link to a Google
Form from your teacher). Deadline to postmark your State payment.
Mon., Feb. 23, 2026, 8:00 p.m.:
Entries in
State promotional video
contest
due to State director.
Tue., Feb. 24, 2025, 11:59 p.m.: Remote
judging of the 7 virtual State events ends.
Sat., Feb. 28, 2026:
Texas State German Contest,
Texas State
University, San Marcos.
Sat., Mar. 7, 2026, 11:59 p.m.: Houstonfest
Scholarship applications due.
xxx., Mar. xx, 2026: Gail Cope
State Scholarship applications due.
between Sat., Mar. 1 and Thu., Apr. 30, 2026: submit
Gail Cope Teacher Grant applications.
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Houstonfest
Scholarships 2026
Rules:
-
Usually, scholarships of $500, $450, $400, $350, and $300
(or some other distribution totaling at least $2000) are awarded, subject
to funds availability each year. If we have funds for more scholarships,
as we did in 2025, we will award more. Generous grants from the
Houston
Saengerbund in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 have supported the scholarships
in recent years.
-
The deadline for entry was 11:59 p.m. on
Saturday,
March 7,
2026.
-
Any student currently in 11th or 12th
grade who placed in the top five in three or more events
(virtual and/or in person) at Houstonfest is eligible. Students who win a scholarship as juniors
are eligible to be nominated again their senior year, but if they win their
senior year, their total winnings over the two years will be capped at $500. The philosophy here is to spread the wealth around. For instance, if a
student wins $350 as a junior and then qualifies for a $400 scholarship the
following year, they will receive $150 the second year, for a two-year total
of $500, and the remaining $250 the second year will go to create a scholarship
for someone else further down in the rankings.
-
Unless otherwise provided in
a given year, each school may nominate only
one student.
-
The application may be submitted by the German teacher (preferable) or
the student, but the student must confirm with the teacher that the
teacher wants him/her to be the school's nominee before sending in the
application. If more than one application is received from a school, we
reserve the right to give NO scholarship at all to that school.
-
The entry must be submitted on this
downloadable form as an
e-mail attachment to
houstonfest@texasstategermancontest.org. Tip: click the link, then save the
form to your computer before editing and e-mailing it.
-
Scoring will be based solely upon how many
sweepstakes points the student contributed to
their school's sweepstakes total this year, with the following provisions:
-
Only points earned for 1st through 5th place
will be considered. Points earned for 6th through 10th
place will NOT be considered.
-
Only the original placing will be considered. If a student
who placed 6th through 10th in a particular event later
became eligible for State because someone in 1st through 5th
place dropped out of that event, that event will not be considered.
-
Individual events and group events are treated equally, i.e., enter the full
number of sweepstakes points earned for each event, regardless of whether the
student worked on the event alone or in a group.
-
The accuracy of your entries will be checked against your original
registration spreadsheet and the results spreadsheet. Inaccurate or dishonest entries
may result in the disqualification of the application.
-
Sweepstakes points can be found on the original
results spreadsheet.
-
Ties will be broken by the 100 words or less written by the
nominating teacher.
-
Scholarship payment will be in the form of a check made out to the student and
mailed to the teacher by April 15, 2026.
Past Recipients
2025
$1000: Emmery Patton, Kingwood High School
$200*:
Dylan White, Tomball Memorial High School
$450: Hannah Stokes, Tompkins High School
$400:
Georgy Krasovskiy, Brazoswood High School
$350:
Lily Steinfurth, Jordan High School
$300: Nadiyah Russell, Heights High School
$250: Mary Katherine Schmidt, Tompkins High
School
$250: Azriel Jarrett, Jordan High School
$250: Zlata Zolotarenko, Tomball Memorial High School
$250: Bella Williams, Kingwood High School
$250:
Alejandra Giron, Bellaire High School
$250:
Lily Cuellar, Klein Oak High School
$250:
Landon Bynum, Clements High School
$250: Amy
Lee, Bellaire High School
$250:
Diego Diaz, Heights High School
* Dylan's scholarship would
normally have been $500, but he received a $300 scholarship in 2024, and the
lifetime maximum is $500.
2024
$500: Arturo Pedraza Flores, Tompkins High School
$300*:
Bryce Cruise, Heights High School
$400:
Ruhi Kelkar, Clements High School
$350:
Veronika Reznichenko, Brazoswood High School
$300:
Dylan White, Tomball Memorial High School
$300:
Natalia Posadas, Heights High School (Mark Johnson Scholarship)**
$300:
Camila Ramirez, Heights High School (Heights High School Scholarship)***
* Bryce's scholarship would
normally have been $450, but he received a $200 scholarship last year, and the
lifetime maximum is $500.
** This one-time scholarship
was
given in honor of Mark Johnson's years of service to Houstonfest as the host of
the event, 2016-2024.
*** This one-time scholarship
was given in gratitude to Heights High School for its years of hosting Houstonfest (2016-2024).
2023
$500:
Beatriz Laepple, Jordan High School
$425:
Anushka Desai, Tompkins High School
$350:
Alexa Martinez, Clements High School
$250:
Allen Zhu, Kingwood High School
$200:
Bryce Cruise, Heights High School
$150:
Nina Wallach, Bellaire High School
$125:
Timothy Serres, Tomball Memorial High School
$100:
Tejaswi Sriram, Travis High School
$100:
John Newton, Brazoswood High School
2022
$500: Caitriona Devlin, Tompkins High School
$400: Isabel
Wabnitz, Heights High School
$300: Rosa Ramirez, Travis High School
$250: Sarah Gonzales, Jordan High School
$200: Angelina Pascali, Bellaire High School
$175: Alexa Martinez, Clements High School
$100: Timothy Serres, Tomball Memorial High School
$75: Mia Gorus,
Klein Oak High School
2021
$425: Devdeep Rajpal, Clements High School
$400: Elena Carlsson, Heights High School
2020
$150: Paige Horrell, Morton Ranch High School
$125:
Alexandra Gioukaris, Tompkins High School
$75: Holly Luebsen, Tomball Memorial High
School
2019
$500: Ivette Castro, Morton Ranch High School
$400: Tim Bates, Kingwood High School
$300: Jaime Hotaling, The Woodlands High School
$200: Rishi Jangale, Clements High School
$100: Jesse Ji, Bellaire High School
$50: Emma Kinzel, Tomball High School
2018
$500: Sai Odinga, Clements High School
$450:
Piper Horrell, Morton Ranch High School
$400: Karolis Vaiciulis, Cinco Ranch High School
$350: Shelby Wiecker, The Woodlands High School
$300: Dagny Carlsson, Heights High School
$100:
Charlotte Rissky, Tompkins High School
$50: Nasya Hewlett, Clear Lake High School
2017
$500: Erik Halsband, The Woodlands High
School
$450: Adrianna Navia, Clements High School
$400: Collin Setzer, Kingwood High School
$350: Matthew McGrenera, College Park High School
$300: Rachel Pham, Cinco Ranch High School
$100: Spring Agnew, Deer Park High
School
$75: Cole Thompson, Tompkins High
School
$50: Alexandra Bellon, Tomball High School
2016
$500: Lexi Kokines, The Woodlands High
School
$450: Hans Lammeman, Tompkins High School
$400: Cindy Yongoueth, Clements High School
$350: Anqi Lou, Kingwood High School
$100*:
Madison Ledoux, Deer Park High School
$125: Susana Simmonds, Cinco Ranch High
School
$75: Juan Huerta, Morton Ranch High
School
* The fifth-place award would normally have been $300, but because
Madison
won a $400 scholarship in 2015 and because the lifetime limit per student is $500,
she
received $100 in 2016. This allowed us to use the remaining $200 to award
smaller scholarships for sixth and seventh places.
2015
$500: Burhanuddin Calcuttawala, Clements High
School $450: Scott Stevens, College Park High School
$400: Madison Ledoux, Deer Park High School
$350:
Allison Williamson, Kingwood High School
$200: Jason Timmins, Brazoswood High School
$200: Alec Schillinger, Tompkins High School
2014
$500: Desserai Ramos, Deer Park
High School
$450: Jeremy Beaty, Clements
High School
$400: Robyn Morison, The
Woodlands College Park High School
$350: Madeline Jasper, Brazoswood High School
2013
$500: Juli Scamardo, Clements High School
$450: Darien Higgins, Kingwood High School
$400: Jenny Baglio, Friendswood High School
$350: José Antonio Jiménez Rocha, Seven Lakes High School
$300: Zach Brown, Deer Park High School
$200: Aundrea Westfall, The Woodlands College Park High School
$150: Emily Grant, Cinco Ranch High School
$100: Madeline Jasper, Brazoswood High School
$100: Stephanie Hoffman, Clear Lake High School
2012
$500: Halla Bearden, Bellaire High School
$450: Britt Montross, Deer Park High School
$400: Ethan Mader, Clements High School
$350: Hannah Aergerter, Kingwood High School
$300: Stephen Schilter, Friendswood High School
Honorable mention, $50 each:
José Antonio Jiménez Rocha, Seven Lakes High School
Anna Clawson, The Woodlands College Park High School
Lynsie Patschke, Taylor High School
2011
$500: Callie Parrott, Deer Park High School
$450: Miranda James, Clements High School
$400: Connor Heaton, Cy-Fair High School
$350: Kaitlyn Berreth, Seven Lakes High School
$300: Nikita Viswasam, Cinco Ranch High School
2010
$500: Ana Builes, Clements High School
$100*: Luke Chen, Seven Lakes High School
$400: Jessie Jones, Deer
Park High School
$350: Philip Meyer, Cinco Ranch High School
$325: Samantha Birchard, Taylor High School
$325: Tracilynn Roberts, Langham Creek High School
* The second-place award would normally have been $450, but because Luke
won a $400 scholarship in 2009 and because the lifetime limit is $500, he
received $100 in 2010. This allowed us to award 6 scholarships instead of
5.
2009
$500: Stephanie Sladek, Kingwood High School
$450: Alice Lin, Clements High School
$425: Garrett Steiger, Friendswood High School
$400: Luke Chen, Seven Lakes High School
$375: Daniel McBride, Deer Park High School
2008
$500: Brian Clark, Clements High School
$450: Amalie Barras, Cy-Fair High School
$400: Courtney Svatek, Taylor High School
$350: Abby Spitzer, Cy
Woods High School
$250: Lucas Center, Westside High School |
When is the next Houstonfest?
Saturday,
February 7, 2026 Where
is Houstonfest?
Kingwood High School
2701 Kingwood Dr.
Kingwood, TX 77339
Link to Texas State German Contest
Texas
State German Contest on Facebook
Texas
State German Contest 40th Anniversary Facebook Group |