Students establish new record of 32 spelling rounds
The excitement mounted round after round as 30 fifth through eighth grade students competed in the annual Hamilton County’s Spelling Bee Feb. 20.
The top spellers from schools in Aurora, Giltner, Hampton and Immanuel Lutheran School in Polk as well as the Hamilton County Homeschool Association put pencils to paper to compete for the title of Champion Speller. The students exceeded the expectations of both their families and the judges as they completed a record-setting 32 rounds worth of words they either spelled or defined.
Event coordinator Beth Andrews explained that the students in each grade all compete in five rounds of competition to begin with and then additional elimination rounds are added until only four students remain in each grade division.
This year’s sixth grade contestants went a record 11 rounds before getting down to the final four. (The previous record was nine rounds in 2022.) The eighth graders went for nine rounds, the fifth graders ran seven and the seventh graders took five rounds to whittle it down to four.
Throughout the more than three hours of the competition, the fifth and sixth graders grappled with words like chortle (laughing in a breathy or gleeful way) and trawler (a fishing boat for trawling), while words given the seventh and eighth graders included erudition (the quality of having or showing great knowledge or learning) and cacophonous (involving or producing a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds).
Instead of having the students spell out the words orally as seen in the National Spelling Bee, the contestants in the Hamilton County contest write out their responses.
“I do only the written contest because I think it’s more fair,” Andrews stated. “I simply don’t like oral tests because it’s really the luck of the draw.”
Although students who misspell words are eliminated in each round, the contestants are not told that and continue in the competition until the end. Andrews said she believes that helps all the contestants finish strong.
“I don’t want to give them a hint as to who’s in there so we just leave them all,” she commented. “I figure it’s not going to hurt them to spell a few more words.”
When it was all over, the overall champion was
Wyatt Heiss in first place followed by Aiden Roush, second, Paxton Norquest, third and Jasper Bennett, fourth.
A new award was added to the contest for the first time this year. The Best Penmanship Award was presented to a student in each grade who was recognized for having excellent handwriting.
Best Penmanship awards were presented to Brynleigh Scheidmann, Peyton Pospisil, Harley Komorowski and Brayden Wolinski.
A Certificate of Excellence was also awarded again this year.
“The last few years, I look up and see who’s been able to come all four years,” Andrews stated. “It’s kind of special to be able to do that.”
This year’s certificate recipient was Hampton eighth grader Mason Wiems, who has placed fourth in his grade level every year he has competed.
Other results included:
Fifth grade -- Bryleigh Scheidemann, Hampton, first; Paxton Norquest, Aurora, second; Fostin Omel, Giltner, third and Thor Hamilton, Aurora, fourth.
Sixth grade -- Eliza Taylor, Giltner, first; Josiah Peterson, Aurora, second; Peyton Pospisil, Aurora, third; Louie Schelkopf, Hamilton County Homeschool Association, fourth.
Seventh grade -- Jasper Bennett, Aurora, first; Layne Bauer, Immanuel Lutheran, second; Harley Komorowski, Immanuel Lutheran, third; Carter Howland, Aurora, fourth.
Eighth grade -- Wyatt Heiss, Aurora, first; Aiden Roush, Aurora, second; Tanner Schelkopf, Giltner, third; Mason Wiems, Hampton, fourth.