NewsAcademicsLower GradesEnglish
Fifth-grader wins spelling bee
Feb 6, 2008 12:00 AM
By Tannika King - Faculty
Fifth-grader Jack Tunnell was named winner of the school-wide spelling bee, held Feb. 1 at the Lower School.
“I was hoping to be in the top three, but was not expecting to win, so I was both surprised and excited,” said Tunnell, son of Kim and Mark Tunnell of Rome. “When they called out the word ‘vigilante’ my mind went back to the beginning of the year. In Reading, we created superhero characters to go along with a novel. [My classmate] Abraham Johnson had a character called Vigilante. I remembered seeing the word on his drawing [so I knew how to spell it].”
Other students placing in the competition included fourth-grader Vraj Patel (second place), fifth-grader Katie Hurley (third place), third-grader Mamie Johnson (fourth place), fourth-grader Sally Jones (fifth place) and third-grader Rikki Googe (sixth place). These students will join Tunnell to form a six-member team that will compete Feb. 26 at the first-ever Independent Elementary Schools of Rome and Cartersville Spelling Bee.
For both events, all words are taken from the Scripps National Spelling Bee guidelines. Sponsored by the E.W. Scripps Company in conjunction with over 260 newspapers around the world, the National Spelling Bee was begun in 1925.
“I was hoping to be in the top three, but was not expecting to win, so I was both surprised and excited,” said Tunnell, son of Kim and Mark Tunnell of Rome. “When they called out the word ‘vigilante’ my mind went back to the beginning of the year. In Reading, we created superhero characters to go along with a novel. [My classmate] Abraham Johnson had a character called Vigilante. I remembered seeing the word on his drawing [so I knew how to spell it].”
Other students placing in the competition included fourth-grader Vraj Patel (second place), fifth-grader Katie Hurley (third place), third-grader Mamie Johnson (fourth place), fourth-grader Sally Jones (fifth place) and third-grader Rikki Googe (sixth place). These students will join Tunnell to form a six-member team that will compete Feb. 26 at the first-ever Independent Elementary Schools of Rome and Cartersville Spelling Bee.
For both events, all words are taken from the Scripps National Spelling Bee guidelines. Sponsored by the E.W. Scripps Company in conjunction with over 260 newspapers around the world, the National Spelling Bee was begun in 1925.
