{"id":35715,"date":"2022-04-13T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-13T11:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/?p=35715"},"modified":"2022-04-12T10:11:04","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T14:11:04","slug":"local-students-place-at-regional-spelling-bee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/local-students-place-at-regional-spelling-bee\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Students Place at Regional Spelling Bee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Originally printed in the Toledo Blade<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By: Stephen Zenner, The Blade<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stillness and a palpable silence laid heavily on the fifth through eighth graders onstage Saturday during The Blade\u2019s 2022 Northwest Ohio Championship Spelling Bee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nineteen participants from schools and districts scattered across northwest Ohio from the Indiana border to Sandusky vied for the grand prize of an expenses-paid trip to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in National Harbor, Md., just outside Washington during Memorial Day week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For just shy of two hours at the Owens Community College Center for Fine & Performing Arts, students spelled word after word, surviving barrages of meticulous spelling challenges in increasing difficulty until a number of rounds had offered up a winner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bailey Lang, a published writer, served as the bee\u2019s pronouncer, or master of ceremonies, while Mike Pearson, the assistant managing editor of The Blade, and Diana Bush, executive director of TOLEDO Read for Literacy, judged the bee, dismissing incorrectly spelled words with the ringing of a bell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it’s a very nerve-wracking situation for a lot of kids,\u201d said Heather Pacheco, The Blade\u2019s events coordinator who coordinated the spelling bee. \u201cThey just want to be here, have fun and do well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s easier said than done for a winner-take-all gambit involving thousands of potential words for students who have not even entered high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A quick final round pitted Cara McIntosh, of Christian Home Educators of Paulding County, and Lainey Gardner, of Crestview Middle School in Convoy, Ohio. Cara received \u201cinimical,\u201d and the polite chime of the judges\u2019 bell signaled her misspelling. Lainey then correctly spelled \u201cconundrum\u201d before being given the final word, \u201cquotidian.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 13-year-old girl admitted afterward that she \u201cwas not expecting to\u201d spell the exotic word correctly, but was happy to have won the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had my mom read from a list and then I would try to spell it best I could,\u201d Lainey said. \u201cIf I got it wrong, then she would have me spell it again until I got it right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally printed in the Toledo Blade By: Stephen Zenner, The Blade Stillness and a palpable silence laid heavily on the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[14027,14025,14026,14024,14023,14021,14022,3155,14020],"class_list":["post-35715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-school","tag-bailey-lang","tag-cara-mcintosh","tag-lainey-gardner","tag-maryland","tag-national-harbor","tag-northwest-ohio-championship-spelling-bee","tag-scripps-national-spelling-bee","tag-spelling-bee","tag-toledo-blade"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/spelling-bee-regionals.jpeg?fit=666%2C363&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YQd9-9i3","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-28 03:53:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}