Top Spellers Advancing to State Competitions
On Saturday, January 28 at the UCSC campus, Classroom Units 1 and 2 the top two spellers in each division (Elementary and Junior) advanced to represent Santa Cruz County at the statewide bees to be held this spring.
Winners for the Elementary Division (4-6 grade)
- First: Connor Barirani, Georgiana Bruce Kirby Prep, advances to State
- Second: Owen McGinty, Rio Del Mar Elementary, advances to State
- Third: Ronan Mai, Santa Cruz Gardens
Winners for the Junior High division (7-9 grade)
- First: Owen Mercer, Scotts Valley Middle School, advances to State
- Second: Tristan Torres, Aptos Junior High School, advances to State
- Third: Jung Soo Jose Kim-Ebio, Alianza Charter School
Dozens of students in grades 4-9, represented public and private schools in Santa Cruz. Each school selected their two top spellers to send to the countywide Spelling Bee sponsored by the Santa Cruz County Office of Education.
This year’s highlights:
- Challenging word lists, especially compared to previous years. There were no perfect papers in either division this year. The winner of the elementary division spelled 65 of 76 words correctly, including inflammable, belligerence and gherkin.
- Spell-offs for first place in the elementary division between Conner Barirani and Owen McGinty and for third place in the elementary division between Ronan Mai and Abigail Deutsch.
- A spell-off for second place in the junior division between Tristan Torres and Jung Soo Jose (J.J.) Kim-Ebio. Both J.J. and Tristan placed second in previous years in the elementary division.
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