HODGDON, Maine — Spelling difficult words on a stage in front of your peers is never an easy proposition, but that did not deter 15 students in grades 6-8 from competing Friday in the annual Mill Pond School Spelling Bee for the right to move on the Aroostook County competition.
Lasting 11 rounds, the final two spellers needed five rounds to determine a champion. Olivia Morris, a seventh-grader, successfully spelled “telepathic” and “flurries” to win the title.
The Aroostook County Bee will be held Feb. 13 at Fox Auditorium at the University of Maine at Fort Kent.
Last year’s Scripp’s National Spelling Bee championship ended in a tie for just the fourth time in the 89-year history of the bee, with two students collecting $30,000 in cash and prizes each. The two winning words at last year’s national bee were “stichomythia,” which means a dialogue of altercation or dispute delivered by two actors in alternating lines; and “feulletion,” a feature section of a European magazine or newspaper.
Students were presented with tablets of paper and pencils to write their words down, if they so chose. Sewell went over the rules with the spellers explaining they could ask for their word to be pronounced again; ask for a definition; or ask to hear the word used in a sentence.
Other students who participated in the spelling bee were Jacy Willette, Mallory Williams, Joshua Caler, Emma Drew, Lucas Ramsey, Jeremiah Goff, Breea Carll, Abigail McAtee, Sabra Scott, Katie Ledger, Sarah Sturtevant, Victoria Morris and Phoenix Myers.
