Marion eighth grader wins county spelling bee
STAR-JOURNAL STAFF
Superlative.
That 11-letter word describes Marion eighth-grader Jeff Richmond's performance at Wednesday's countywide spelling bee, held at Goessel High School.
And it also happens to be the final word in the bee that he spelled correctly — making Richmond the spelling champion of Marion County.
Home-school student Greta Kliewer took second, and Cody Blackletter of Jacob's Ladder Academy took third.
Twenty-two elementary and junior high/middle school students from across the county filed into the Goessel High auditorium on Wednesday to compete in the annual spelling bee, which featured students from Centre to Peabody-Burns, as well as two students from home schools.
Cassie Kroeker, Brandon Brown, JuliAnne Chisolm, and Adam Dirks represented the Hillsboro school district at the bee. Isaac Fast, Brittany Dirksen, Garrett Hiebert, and Kendall Voth represented Goessel.
As the end of the bee neared, third-place winner Blackletter was eliminated, leaving Richmond and Kliewer as the final two.
To win, the student must spell the previous misspelled word, as well as correctly spell a new word. And the final two contenders were hit with some difficult ones, going back and forth with "pageantry," "embarrassment," "inaugural," and "assassinate."
Kliewer had her final chance to win after correctly spelling "psychic," but she then misspelled "chronological."
Richmond was able to correctly spell "chronological," and he then aced "superlative," making him the champion.
Although they didn't make the final three, the four Goessel students participating held on until the seventh round before one of them bowed out.
And boys seemed to rule the roost during the bee — six of the final seven competitors were boys, with just Greta Kliewer hanging in as the lone girl contestant.
Jeff Richmond will now participate in the state spelling bee, to be held this April in Topeka.
