Every year I look forward to the bee. I look forward to the anxiety. Most years I compete in the class. Then get top two or three there and advance to counties. Counties this year is tomorrow. This is the bee that can determine if I am actually better than my friend that I will name Tom. I wait every year for this, the studying, the bees, I love every part. This is the year that in my County, we could go onto Nationals.
A group of excited students, teachers and members of the Lawrenceville Rotary club met on February 8 for the second annual Arsenal Middle School Spelling Bee. With their classmates in the audience, 17 students from the sixth, seventh and eighth grades participated. They had been studying for several weeks and seemed eager to compete. Their teachers served as pronouncer and score-keeper, and Rotarians sat as judges and time-keepers.
On January 31 the school wide spelling bee was held at Glenn Raymond School. 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students competed in our competition. The top three spellers from each grade participated, and our local winner was 8th grader Ashton Peters! She is advancing to our regional competition on February 27th at Bradley Bourbonnais High School Auditorium. 18 School are bringing their top speller for this regional competition. Congratulations to Ashton, her winning word was "ambitious."
After placing second in last year's Bee, eighth grader Emily Winkler, from Milton M. Somers Middle School in La Plata, Maryland, was determined to try again. Her persistence paid off as she won by spelling "Rembrandt." Winkler is one of many who likes to spell out the word on her hand before speaking into the microphone.
Nathan Barnes was as cool as his Pink Floyd t-shirt during the Wilson Times spelling bee in Wilson, North Carolina. The 14-year-old, who is homeschooled, will make a return trip to D.C. after winning with "efficacy." He said he plans to study up on prefixes and suffixes in preparation for the national finals.
Paarth Tara plans to enjoy his second and last chance at the national finals. The eighth-grader from Woodlawn Middle School won with “protuberance.” This was the 25th Times-News Spelling Bee in Burlington, North Carolina. Tara says he plans to fit a little more fun into this year's trip to Washington, D.C.