Six advance to districts

Before the Monroe Intermediate School spelling bee even started, the field was narrowed down to 12.

MIS sixth-grade teacher Karl Schnaekenberg said all of the sixth-grade students were given 20 words to spell. Those who missed the fewest advanced to the spelling bee. The students were asked to write down the word after the teacher spoke it.

Schnaekenberg said it was like a spelling test, but the words were hard. This was a way to narrow down the field of competitors. Schnaekenberg said those 20 words really challenged the students abilities to spell.

With the field narrowed down to 12, MIS hosted a spelling bee on Friday morning. Hunter Byrd, Kieran Gladue, Devin Bobbitt, Chatney Tirrell, Maylee Gregersen, Jason Richmond, Trenten Dowley, Allison Dickson, Lauren Jensen, Caeden Grubb, Rocco Coppolo and Mariahn Litz were the 12 competing to advance to districts.

The students were asked to spell a word for each round. Unlike other spelling bees, there was no bell to tell them whether or not they spelled the word correctly. Some of the students turned around after spelling a word to see if their parents knew if they spelled it right or not.

At first, the students seemed to spell the words fast and correctly, but as the round progressed, it got harder and harder. In the final rounds almost all of the participants were asking for the word to be used in a sentence, its definition, its origin and to repeat the word before starting to spell it.

Some of the words in the earlier rounds were whey, phonics, goliath, ipso facto, havoc, outrageous and thyme. As the rounds progressed, the difficulty of the words increased. Some of the words the students were asked to spell in the final rounds were epicurean, catalyst, noctambulist, ignominious, whippoorwill and mellifluous.

When the students heard they had to complete in one more round to determine winners some where getting tired, but were trying to keep their spirits up.

"Great another chance to fail again," Dowley said sarcastically. 

To which most of the students laughed.

When the regular rounds were over, the judges, Schnaekenberg, Bonnie Hanks and Julie Witte, tallied up the results to see who spelled the most words correctly. 

Schnaekenberg told the students they did great. He said he had only used three or four of those words they were asked to spell in the last few rounds. He told the students all of those words were taken off of the national spelling bee website.

Once the judges were done adding up the scores, it was determined that there was a tie for second and third place, however the students asked to compete in the spell off did not know they were competing for second and third place. It took nine words to settle the spell off between Gregersen and Dickson.

In the end, Chatney Tirrel took first place, Maylee Gregersen finished second and Allison Dickson too third, while there was a fourth, fifth and sixth place tie with Jason Richmond, Mariahn Litz, and Caeden Grubb. First through third-place winners received a trophy.

The six students advanced to districts, which will take place Feb. 20 at Western Wyoming Community College. These students will go up against the other sixth, seventh and eighth graders looking to make it on to the next round.

"In the past we have done well at districts," Schnaekenberg said.