Two Turkey Hill School students, Anton Rathjens, a 4th grade and Liliana Restrepo, 6th grade, proved their spelling prowess at the Orange Board of Education District Spelling Bee, Thursday, May, 26, at Mary L. Tracy School. Each won their respective divisions.
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Peck Place School Principal Eric Carbone was the host for the event and Kai Byrd, principal of Marl L Tracy, was the bee master.
The competition quickly got heated with the words getting gradually more difficult each round. The words ranged from “coins” to “elect” and quickly built up to trickier words like” ascertain” and “foliage.”
Rathjens ended up taking the grand prize for the 3rd-4th grade division, representing Jennifer Roche’s class. For the 5th-6th grade division, Restrepo won, representing Ellen Ginsberg’s class. Both victors took away a certificate of their achievement as well as a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card.
The District Spelling Bee was split up into two divisions: a division for grades 3-4 (ages 8-9) and a division for grades 5-6 (ages 11-12). Participants included the winner and runner up from the previous spelling bee competitions. Those who participated had to win the spelling bee on a class room level, a grade level and on a school level in order to compete in the final district bee. There were a total of 12 participants with six in each division. The students came from Race Brook, Peck Place, and Turkey Hill schools.
Byrd explained the rules of the event.. Each participant was told a word to spell. Participants could then ask for the pronunciation of the word, or for it to be used in a sentence for reference. If the word had multiple homonyms and one wasn’t prescribed by the bee-master, the student could spell the word either way.
If, however a specific homonym was provided, the students must spell it that way, otherwise it would be incorrect. When there were only two contestants left, two words must be spelled correctly in a row in order to win.
Refreshments, including a cake were served.