While much attention has been placed on area public school sports returning to action and students increasingly returning to the classroom, another long-time school tradition as returned this year — the annual spelling bee.
Mount Airy City Schools have recently participated in their classroom spelling bees, school spelling bees, and district-wide spelling bee.
JJ Jones Intermediate School sent seven students to compete against middle schoolers at the district-wide spelling bee. Third graders Halen Turner and Bates Currin, fourth graders Summer Carpenter and Jack Moore along with fifth graders Ellie Payne, Cassandra
Ramirez, and Adriana Ortiz-Contreras finished at the top of their grade level bees.
Mount Airy Middle School had six students finish in the top two of their grade level bees to move on to the district-wide bee. Sixth graders Alejandro Bobadilla and Sabrina Brown, seventh graders Luca Livengood and Tommy Simmons with eighth graders Guadalupe Rubio and Isabella Willard earning their way to the next level.
While school and district bees are normally held in front of a packed audience, COVID-19 provided guidelines that limited the number of people who could watch in person. Students and parents were able to enjoy the competitions via an online platform.
“The lack of audience members was surely a relief to students as spelling in front of parents and peers can be a stressful event,” said Carrie Venable, executive officer of communications for the school system. “Students did a great job managing social distancing and mask usage during the bee. For judges to do their job well, they needed to be able to see the mouths of the spellers. Thanks to special microphones that picked up audio from a good distance, students were able to remain safe and pull their masks down for judges to see and hear them spell.”
Local fourth graders and a sixth grade student took top honors. Fourth grader Jack Moore won the bee with fourth grader Summer Carpenter and sixth grader Alejandro Bobadilla ending as runners-up.
Here are the results from each school, as reported by the city school system, listing the winners, runners-up, and participants.
JJ Jones Intermediate School
Third grade: Halen Turner, winner, Bates Currin, runner-up, Kohen Taylor, Tanner Goad, Lenzi Cagle, Ellie Bohart, Maizey Goins, Makenzie Boyd, Chapel Overby, Parker Brown, Dan Le, Hasanah McCall, Summer Hawks, and Blake Barefoot;
Fourth grade: Summer Carpenter, winner, Jack Moore, runner-up, Salem Cassell, Camron Smeltzer, Skye Lipot, Chase Kniskern, Colin Stewart, Brent Wright, JD Bohart, and Salem Fulk;
Fifth grade: Ellie Payne, winner, Cassandra Ramirez, runner up, Adriana Ortiz-Contreras, runner up, Max Fernandez, Autumn Ayers, Makenzie Wall, Ana Valverde, Kylie Venable, Titus Summers, Alanna Swartz, Nathan Haynes, Kaidence;
Mount Airy Middle School
Sixth grade: Alejandro Bobadilla, winner; Sabrina Brown, runner-up, Jaylex Gates, Gracie O’Nan, Lillie Goins, Kaebyn Avara, Katie Draughn, Rebekah Freeman, and Nevan Owens;
Seventh grade: Luca Livengood, winner, Tommy Simmons, runner-up, Emma Rudisill, Joana Villanueva, Taylor McCormack, Abraham Rivera, Garrett Willard, Nate Fulk, Ryan Easter, Elijah Lambert;
Eighth grade: Guadalupe Rubio winner, Isabella Willard, runner-up, Jackson Hodge, Christopher Semones, Angel Ortiz, Chase Moore, Dyson Long, Savannah Wooten. Fletcher Gallimore, John Martin, Shockley Hiatt, Kieran Slate, and Lucas Goins.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com