MOUNT MORRIS – On Monday, Feb. 4, the local school spelling bee was held in the David L. Rahn Junior gymnasium.
Twenty-two seventh and eighth graders competed. OCUSD Assistant Superintendent, Adam Larsen, served as the proctor. The first word of the day was “litter” and the competition began. Only five contestants missed their first word. The remaining seventeen escaped elimination in round two by all correctly spelling their word. Round three saw three students misspelling their words. Another three fell in round four.
At the completion of round five, only nine spellers remained. The difficulty of the words seemed to increase as well. Only one of the remaining spellers dropped out in the next round on the word, “Borneo.” Two more were lost in round seven and only one in round eight. Five spellers were left at the beginning of round 9 and it appeared that the competition could continue indefinitely. However, three students were quickly eliminated. Only eighth graders, defending DLR champion, Emmett Peterson, and Abigail Rogers remained.
After musing for quite some time on the word, “alabaster,” Emmett misspoke. Abigail only had to spell her word, “miniature” correctly. She confidently stepped to the microphone, rattled off the letters correctly and was crowned DLR Spelling Champion. Abigail will now represent DLR in the Regional Spelling Bee to be held on Thursday, Feb. 21, at Dixon High School from 10 a.m.-noon.
The participants included: Ethan Schafer, Kenna Wubbena, Thalia McDougal, Levi Eden, Rylie Robertson, Kaitlyn Drew, Samantha Limond, Kiele Carlson, David Barnett, Abigail Myers, Phoenix McCaslin, Raeya Miatke, Elenora Alfano, Cayden Lewis, Logan Sarver, Alexys Davis, Abigail Fletcher, Emmett Peterson, Jade Brewington, Kalvin Gallagher, Elijah George and Abigail Rogers.
