Pec Middle School students compete in Spelling Bee

SUBMITTED PHOTO The Gazette
Thirty-nine students participated in this year’s Spelling Bee.

The Pecatonica Community Middle School hosted the Annual Spelling Bee Friday, Feb. 14. Thirty-nine spellers, grades 5 through 8th grade, were present at the start of Round 1.

Marilyn Larsen, the pronouncer, provided all the information a speller can receive about a word in the moment: its origin, its grammatical part of speech, and an example of its use in a sentence.

The spellers were focused and gave their best effort. Eighteen competitors were still in the competition at the end of Round 4! In Round 5 the words were more challenging and six spellers fell to words such as, “sanitized, shepherd, and champagne.”

Three students advanced to Round 9 and by the end there were two: Allison McLevige and Rebecca Brown. Allison and Rebecca are in the 8th Grade and 2020 Academic Bowl teammates.

They went several rounds before Allison successfully spelled “levee” and finished the bee by spelling the final word, “commodore.” Allison will advance to the Regional Spelling Bee held on March 18.

Congratulations Allison, Rebecca and to all our students who were brave enough to compete. Thank you to the staff, students, parents, and community members that supported the Spelling Bee.