Highland’s Caleb Carder takes title at county bee

By Randa Wagner -

The top three fin­ish­ers in the 2013 Mor­row County Spelling Bee pose with their tro­phies at Thurs­day night’s com­pe­ti­tion. From left are Northmor’s Dylan Tim­mons, 2nd place; Highland’s Caleb Carder, win­ner; and Northmor’s James Crossen, 3rd place.

Thurs­day night’s Mor­row County Spelling Bee turned into a nail-biter as two com­peti­tors went four rounds at the fin­ish to pin down a winner.

When the dust set­tled, High­land eighth grader Caleb Carder cor­rectly spelled ‘dis­sym­me­try’ to take the title over Northmor’s Dylan Timmons.

Janet James, MOESC Tal­ented and Gifted Con­sul­tant with the Mid Ohio Edu­ca­tional Ser­vice Cen­ter, wel­comed par­ents and atten­dees to the events, and intro­duced Mark Boh­land as the word presenter.

Thirty-two stu­dents from North­mor, Card­ing­ton and High­land were entered to com­pete, and each stu­dent came to the micro­phone and stated their name, school and grade before com­pe­ti­tion started.

The first two rounds went smoothly before seri­ous elim­i­na­tion began to take place.

Stu­dents were encour­aged to repeat the word before spelling to guar­an­tee they under­stood it, and ask for a def­i­n­i­tion or exam­ple of use if needed. At the con­clu­sion of the com­pe­ti­tion, the poten­tial win­ner would have to answer two words cor­rectly to win.

That’s where things got interesting.

James Crossen mis­spelled “ver­te­bral,” leav­ing Carder and Tim­mons to go four rounds before either suc­cess­fully spelled two words con­sec­u­tively. Words that stum­bled the two included “quiche,” “quo­rum,” “archangel,” and “ascen­sion” before Carder suc­cess­fully spelled “dissymmetry.”

Carder and Tim­mons shook hands to the cheers and applause of the crowd.

The thir­teen top final­ists from this bee will go on to com­plete in the Tri-County Spelling Bee Thurs­day, April 24 at the Mid Ohio Con­fer­ence Cen­ter in Mans­field. The event is free and open to the public.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Mar 13 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.