Winner and Runner-up of the 2013 Paulding Spelling Bee
The Paulding County Annual Spelling Bee took place Tuesday, February 5 at the Wayne Trace Payne Elementary. This year’s contestants were Derek Reeb of Antwerp; Kennadi Foy of Christian Home Educators of PC; Grant Baumle of Divine Mercy; Cynthia Tershner of Oakwood Elementary; Tyrel Goings of Paulding Elementary; Hannah Farr of Paulding Middle School; Bryan Hofmann of WT Grover Hill Elementary; Julianne Roop of WT Payne Elementary; Brady Stabler of WT Jr. High.
Sandy Freeman, from Western Buckeye E.S.C., lead the introduction to the Spelling Bee. She prominently introduced Al Lautzenheiser, who introduced the judges and gave the rules.
Pronouncer was Mr. Doug Grooms, Van Wert;
The competition started with two rounds of practice before moving on to the official competition judged by: Mr. Travis Lichty, Antwerp Elementary Principal; Mrs. Cathy Schoenaur, Divine Mercy Catholic School Principal; and Ms. Jennifer Manz, Oakwood Elementary School Principal.
The spelling event usually goes fairly quickly and this year was no different. Some words are harder than others and the contestants do not get to choose their words to spell.
The final three contestants where Derek Reeb, Kennadi Foy and Hannah Farr and all went several rounds before Hannah misspelled a word. Kennadi a couple of rounds later tripped on the word “sufficiently” and Derek took the win with the word “societal”.
All the young people did a great job in representing their educational institutions. The area can be proud of young people like this.
Derek Reeb will move on the Journal Gazette Spelling Competition March 9 in Fort Wayne.
