Tower-Soudan spelling bee

Tower-Soudan sixth-grader Gabby Suihkonen was crowned as the school spelling champ after successfully spelling monarch in the final round of the school spelling bee. Classmate Autumn Vagle was the runner-up, after missing the spelling of immature. Gabby spelled centipede to win the sixth round, then correctly spelled the next word for the win.

The four top spellers from grades five through eight competed in the bee. Al Reller once again took center stage as the pronouncer, and Lori Anderson, Jacque Horvat, Kandi Olson and Michelle Anderson were the judges.

Only two students were stumped in the first round, and four more left the floor in the second. In the fourth round, the judges jumped ahead to some harder words, and quickly eliminated five more spellers. Four spellers were left in the running: Eighth-grader Sabrina Larson and sixth-graders Autumn Vagle, Tayler Banks and Gabby Suihkonen.

Tayler slipped up while spelling successful and Sabrina Larson was ruled incorrect on punctuation, leaving Autumn and Gabby as the semi-finalists. The bee just took one more round.

Words that spellers got wrong this year included: laundry, surround, suggest, receive, continent, specialty, missile, significant, mildew, commentary, dynamite, fertilize, successful, punctuation and immature.

Gabby will now compete in the ISD 2142 District Bee at the district office on Feb. 5. The two top spellers from the district bee move on to the regional spelling bee, and the winners of the regional bee compete in the state spelling bee.