By GABRIELLE SHIOZAWA
Moapa Valley Progress
You would not BEE-lieve the spelling skills of the Grant M. Bowler Elementary School fifth graders! These talented kids put their prowess on display last Wednesday as they competed in the school’s annual spelling bee.
The students were given a list of 620 words to study one week prior to the competition. An in-class elimination session was then held to determine who would compete in the final bee.
On Wednesday, 43 competitors took the stage to determine the top three spellers for the school.
The stage was a hive of activity during the first round of the competition. Thirteen participants were eliminated, where they faced words like ‘believe’ and ‘except’. Eight more left the stage during the second phase of the bee, leaving other competitors to master words like ‘knight’, ‘beautiful’, and ‘calves’.
With just over half of the contestants left, spellers and spectators alike were abuzz during the third round of the bee. Nine more spellers were eliminated during this intense competition.
Eight more competitors were eliminated in the fourth round, where they stumbled over words like ‘pertinent’ and ‘proficiency’. Words mastered by the five successful spellers in this round included ‘independence’, ‘astronaut’, and ‘algae’.
‘Restaurant’, ‘tournament’, and ‘accompanied’ disqualified the next three spellers, leaving Brock Aikele and Christopher Houston to compete for the top two places in the bee. Before that could happen, however, the three eliminated spellers were invited back onstage to vie for third place. Olivia Dalley came out on top in this competition, earning the third-place trophy for her correct spelling of the word ‘deceive’.
Aikele was given the word ‘chauffeur’, which he misspelled, placing him second overall. Houston went on to take the first-place title with his correct spelling of the word ‘guacamole’.
Despite the competitive nature of the bee, lightheartedness was maintained through jokes from the participants, as well as from the audience. Spellers cheered for each of their classmates as they went to the microphone, and they lamented with them as they left the stage.
Event organizer Carolyn DeLafrance commented that her favorite thing about the spelling bee is that it “encourages these kids to study!”
“They have to look at words they didn’t previously know,” she explained.
The Grant M. Bowler Spelling Bee is the bee’s knees for those who participate in it, and this longtime tradition will surely continue to delight students and spectators for years to come.
