January is Spelling Bee Month and Scripps Spelling Bees were held at Blendon and Walnut Springs middle schools. From in-class spelling tests to school-wide bees, one student from each building proved to be the top speller and will move on to represent their school and the district.
Anthony Vilardo (grade 8), Finn Tan (7) and Stephen Beach (6) were the top spellers at Blendon Middle School, with Tan earing first place.
Muna Ali (7), Abigail Cumming-Vukovic (6), and Giselle Guevara (6) were the top spellers at Walnut Springs, with Ali earning first place.
Tan and Ali will join Ema Rennie (8) from Genoa Middle School and Catherine Adams (7) from Heritage Middle School to represent their respective schools by participating in an on-line spelling bee which may result in the opportunity to compete in March at the regional Scripps Spelling Bee in Athens, Ohio.
Scripps is the nation’s largest and longest-running educational promotion, administered on a not-for-profit basis by the E.W. Scripps Company to help students improve their spelling, increase their vocabularies, learn concepts, and develop correct English usage that will help them all their lives. Local funding was provided through the Columbus Dispatch.