On Jan. 23, the Nativity gym was the site of a keen competition – the schoolwide spelling bee. Forty students from fourth through eighth grades went head-to-head in a very tough competition!
Students competed in their individual homerooms to earn the right to participate in the school’s spelling bee. When they arrived at the gym, they were given final instructions and pulled numbers to decide the random order in which they would spell. Sitting in their numerical order, the students eagerly anticipated the start of the competition.
The spelling bee started with a practice round and then the competition began in earnest. Our students competing this year were all excellent spellers – and we went through a couple rounds not losing many students at all. The words gradually got more difficult, and as that began to happen, a few more students went out in each round.
Finally, we were down to three students: Jaxon Calhoon, seventh grade, Jackson Maples, eighth grade and Aubrey Silcox, eighth grade! This trio went through several rounds, where they all spelled their words correctly. Finally, Aubrey misspelled, leaving the two boys. Jackson Maples was the one to spell correctly, so he became champion on his final word, “positivity.” Our student audience was very well-behaved and supported all of our spellers very well.
Mr. Maples will be an awesome representative for Nativity Catholic School at the District Spelling Bee! If successful at the district level, he can proceed to the regional competition. The regional winners travel to Washington, D.C. for the national Scripps Spelling Bee competition. Our seventh-grade runner-up, Jaxon Calhoon, will compete, should Mr. Maples be unable to attend.
The spelling words used in our schoolwide competition are provided by the Scripps Howard national organization. We use the words from this list in the order that they are provided, although we can jump to different sections based on the level of difficulty.
We would like to thank Mrs. Margie Hamm, our sponsor and MC, and Mr. Brian Boyle and Mrs. Missy Mendoza for their assistance as judges.
Congratulations to the following students who participated in our spelling bee:
4A Makenzie Judkins 4B Will Fox
Aubrey Kirkhoff Alexis Kabat
Sydney Martens Elaina Shutta
Olivia Mendoza Brooklyn Wethington
5A James Deardorff 5B Logan Estes
Sariya Kitchen Abby Helfrich
Danna Lopez Luke Maples
Sam Smith Lauren Miller
6A Becca Engel 6B Bennie Leffler
Taylor Gregg Lily Meagher
Leah Miller Logan Neyenhaus
Brayden Treadwell Reggie Wilbur
7A Sydney Kirkhoff 7B Jaxon Calhoon
Audrey May Grace Daming
Melody Miller Madeline Daming
Maggie Smith Anthony Ianni
8A Spencer Burge 8B Isaac Gomez-Alejo
Vinny Shives Jackson Maples
Aubrey Silcox Nathan Miller
Kaden Logan Alex Roy
