HOULTON, Maine — It took 20 rounds before a winner was declared at the Greater Houlton Christian Academy annual spelling bee for grades 6-8 last Thursday.
Sixth-graders Joel Carmichael and Jessica Quint went head-to-head in the competition, with Carmichael coming out on top after spelling “monstrous” and the winning word “zodiac.”
Carmichael and Quint now advance to the Aroostook County Bee, which will be held Feb. 13 at Fox Auditorium at the University of Maine at Fort Kent.
The 2015 champion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee will be awarded $30,000 cash along with an engraved trophy; a $2,500 U.S. savings bond and a complete reference library from Merriam-Webster; and $1,200 of reference works, including the Britannica Global Edition, 1768 Encyclopædia Britannica Replica Set Deluxe Edition, 3-year membership to Britannica Online Premium and Britannica World Atlas from Encyclopædia Britannica.
The winning words in last year’s national bee were “stichomythia” — dialogue especially of altercation delivered by two actors — and the word “feuilleton” — part of a European newspaper.
At the local level, students were given a practice round and then given words from a list in random order by Bee pronouncer Pastor Randall Burns. Students were allowed to ask for the word to be pronounced again; used in a sentence or given the word’s definition. Each student spelled the word out loud from memory.
Judges for the event are Lindsay Watson, GHCA teacher; and Lisa Surran, director of children’s and youth ministry at the Military Street Baptist Church.
Also participating in the spelling bee were eighth-graders, Isaac Potter and Cole Winslow; seventh-graders, Yvonne Henderson, Teagan Ewings and Kyle Carver; and sixth-graders Jeremy Stone, Quint and Carmichael.
