Spelling. It can be easy, it can be difficult and it can be frustrating. School spelling bee winners gathered at the district spelling bee at Emery High on Feb. 8 to experience all these emotions as they battled for the chance to go to the regional spelling bee to be held at Green River High School this year on March 8.
The winner of the regional spelling bee will go to Washington D.C. to participate at the National Spelling Bee the end of May.
To qualify for the district spelling bee you must place in the top three in your school. All the local elementary schools as well as the junior highs sent representatives. Emery High principal Larry Davis was the pronouncer for the event with Gwen Callahan and Jared Black acting as judges.
Davis called each student up to the microphone to spell their last names in the practice round. Each round consists of one word spelled for each contestant. The words come from the Scripps word list and the Webster dictionary. Davis explained the rules for the contest. Some words sound the same and are spelled differently. The speller can ask for a word to be repeated, they can ask for an alternate pronunciation, word origin and which part of speech the word is. They can also ask for the word to be used in a sentence. The spelling bee was taped in case there was any questions about how a word was spelled or pronounced. Once a speller begins a word, if he is to stop, then he must proceed and spell the word in the same order he started.
If a word is capitalized then the speller must say capital and then begin to spell the word. A speller will not be disqualified if they do not say capital before spelling the word. After the end of each round any speller who spelled their word incorrectly took their seat in the audience.
The spelling bee ended after 10 rounds and Tyrell Shumway from Green River High School was crowned the top speller of the day. Second place went to Ferron Elementary student Riata Christiansen and Aubree Justice from Ferron Elementary came in third. Shumway spelled the word gunny sack as his winning word. His other words were syllable, fedora, carnage, ensemble, stroganoff, tutelage, debris, polenta and sultan.
First round words included: pursuit, juvenile, ecstatic, gourmet, jubilant, disappoint, elegant, condiment, leisure, desperately, accrued, brochure, serenade, allocation, technician, frivolous and emphasize. Round two words included: matrimony, siege, feign, whimsical, ecosystem, compromise, inflammable, correspondence, hospice, surrealist. Round three: epilepsy, philosophize, dilemma, incidental, leniency, fluoride: Round four: auditorium, controversy, cellophane, mezzanine, and extemporaneous: Round five: cholera, extraordinarily, behemoth, carbohydrates, pituitary: Round six: afghan, scythe: Round seven: jambalaya, mortgage, debris and retrospect. Round eight: circumlocution, polenta and cartilage; round nine: vehemence and sultan.
This year’s spelling bee school winners included: Book Cliff Elementary, fourth grade-Noemi Petit, fifth grade-Shelby Jones, sixth grade-Daniela Mendez.
Castle Dale Elementary-fourth grade-Jace Jorgensen, fifth grade-Bailey Huggard, sixth grade-Brinn Beckstead.
Cleveland Elementary; fourth grade-Hailey Jo Allred, fifth grade-Tiana Jensen, sixth grade-Jayla Weston.
Ferron Elementary; fourth grade-Brynne Urie, fifth grade-Aubree Justice, sixth grade-Riata Christiansen.
Huntington Elementary; fourth grade-Jayce Rudd, fifth grade-Ambree Bennett, sixth grade-Allen Durrant.
Canyon View Junior High; seventh grade-Laicee Kenner, eighth grade-Adria Pattillo.
Cottonwood Elementary; fourth grade-John Donaldson, fifth grade-Brodie Tuttle, sixth grade-Danyale Service.
San Rafael Junior High- seventh grade-Brettlyn Tuttle, eighth grade-Braydon Roberts. Green River High-seventh grade-Randi Hatfield, eighth grade-Tyrell Shumway.
Spelling giants of Emery County
"In front with trophies: First place spelling bee winner is Tyrell Shumway from Green River High School; second place is Riata Christiansen from Ferron Elementary and third place is Aubree Justice from Ferron Elementary. All district spelling bee participants won at their schools."