Ashland County Spelling Bee twists and turns its way to two champions
ASHLAND − Mapleton Middle School's Macklin Ross had the sixth-grade spelldown first-place trophy within his grasp, but faced five additional rounds of competition Tuesday night before losing the championship to Jacob Snay of St. Edward School.
When Ross failed to spell "bedlam" correctly as his extra championship word, three of the original nine Ashland County Spelling Bee contestants — Snay, Anna Grissinger from Ashland Middle School and Maddy Runals of Mapleton Middle School — were back in the contest.
Student competition:Wayne, Holmes, Ashland students get off on the write foot at Power of the Pen
Last year's bee:Tyler Hartzler, Claire Swaisgood claim first-place trophies in Ashland County spelldown
Following several more misses between the four of them, including being felled by the words "vespertine," "regurgitate," "retinol" and "indemnity," Snay triumphed with the word "microbial."
Coming in second was Grissinger, who said she did better than she thought she would.
"I was really shocked (to win)," Snay said after the bee, adding he had also been shocked to win his school bee in competition against one of his friends.
Jennifer Marrah, a consultant for Tri-County Educational Service Center, reminded the audience at the Ashland County-West Holmes Career Center, all of the contestants in the 48th Ashland bee had already been recognized as excellent spellers in their individual school competitions.
Spellers in the seventh- and eighth-grade bee with seven competitors, which followed the sixth-grade spelldown, experienced similar twists and turns.
Loudonville's Adam Carroll didn't backpedal; he correctly spelled 'bipedal'
When the last speller standing, eighth grader Adam Carroll from Loudonville High School, misspelled his championship word, "grotesqueness," Mary Hamilton, a seventh grader at St. Edward School, got a second chance.
The downfall for Hamilton, who said she studied almost every day for the competition, was choosing the wrong definition for a vocabulary word, "kernel." Vocabulary words made up rounds 6 and 9.
Carroll, who was a previous bee winner in sixth grade, went on to correctly spell his second championship word, "bipedal."
Not quite sure what comes next, he and his adviser sought information on the next level of competition.
Information provided by Marrah and Debbie Stoler, an ESC administrative assistant, explained the Ashland County event, unlike Wayne and Holmes counties' bees, is a stand-alone event.
The Ohio University Scripps College of Communication will select regional bee participants based on an online spelling and vocabulary format for building champions, organized by the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Tuesday's pronouncer was Victoria Birk, of Tri-County ESC and the center's Kris Pipes-Perone, Beth Gaubatz and Andrew Johnson served as judges..
This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Ashland County Spelling Bee twists and turns its way to two champions
