Tower-Soudan Spelling Bee

This year’s Tower-Soudan School spelling bee got off to a rather tough start. While the first speller, fifth-grader Madison Porter, coolly spelled out writhe to advance to the second round, the next six spellers had a rougher time, missing on unkempt, desolate, testimony, abominable, delicacy and medallion. Other spellers tripped up on capillary, zoology and misinterpret.

The bee consisted of four spellers each from grades five through eight, who were chosen after participating in classroom spelling bees.

Only seven spellers out of the original 16 were left to start the second round. But round two proved just as challenging as the first. Ashlynn Zika missed on despicable, Makenzie Oshea stumbled on supremacy, Naomi Gawboy hit the last letter wrong on impromptu, Kalyssa Reinhardt got flummoxed on yeti and Ashley Hill had a tough time with peripheral.

Madison Porter and Taneesha Dupree successful made it through round two spelling adorned (Madison) and literacy (Taneesha).

The bee only lasted one more round. Madison easily spelled gigabyte, but Taneesha mashed magnificently. Madison correctly spelled magnificently, and then went on to spell quotient to win the trophy.

Madison will now advance to the ISD 2142 District Spelling Bee. The top two spellers from the ISD 2142 will advance to the Regional Spelling Bee.

The announcer for this year’s bee was Al Reller. Judges were Kandi Olson, Jon Scherf and Amy Shermer.