By Vivian Shipe
KNOXVILLE, TN — Good news continues to pour out of Austin East Magnet High School as former and current students make headlines both on the national and regional stage.
For the second consecutive year, Bianca Belair, A-E graduate has won the national WWE Women’s Wrestling Championship. Belair won the championship belt in a highly anticipated bout, in Arizona this past week, walking into her second year as the top female wrestler in the country.
Current students in the A-E Robotics Club, known as Robo Runners showed they too can represent, finishing in the top 20 of the Smokey Mountain Robotic Regionals. The Robotics program at A-E allows the students to explore various fields of interest such as software development, electrical, and mechanics. The team is the only urban robotics team competing for the last seven years. The team, made of up freshmen is led by Reverend Jessie Jones.
The Austin East magnet programs dance curriculum also has bragging rights as the prestigious and world-famous Debbie Allen Dance Companies 2022 RISE program has accepted A-E Roadrunner, Rayshard Quinnaris Pettway into their program. Dynamic Ray, as he is known in East Tennessee; under the guidance and protective shield of his mother, Knoxville poet Felicia Outsey; has been dancing and winning competitions since his youth and dreams of one day dancing in the Alvin Ailey Dance Troupe.
