Middle School Students Compete in Spelling Bee

1/25/2024

Severn Middle School held its annual Spelling Bee this week, with students testing their spelling prowess against each other and in front of their classmates.

Students first competed in a spelling bee in their English classes, with the winner from each class moving on to the school-wide bee.

Always one of the most exciting events of the year, students took their places on stage in front of their teachers and classmates to do their best to correctly spell the words given to them. Gasps could be heard when students were given a particularly difficult word, and groans of disappointment when someone spelled a word incorrectly.

Carter Vivio, Middle School Foreign Language teacher, served as host for the Spelling Bee and made sure to go over all the rules for students, including a refresher on how a student could win the bee. If a finalist spelled a word incorrectly, the other finalist must spell the next two words correctly. If they failed to spell one of those two words correctly, another round would start over with both spellers.

After several rounds of competition, Will Clark ‘28 and Sofie Patzer ‘29 were the final two spellers remaining. They went back and forth for over 10 minutes, each continuing to spell words such as defoliant and turquoise correctly. Finally, after Will spelled the word propitious incorrectly, Sofie won the Spelling Bee by correctly spelling aerosol and shoal.

6th-grade English teacher Leigh Ann Orsen helped to moderate the event and was proud of how all the students handled the pressure of spelling difficult words in front of their peers. “The spelling bee always highlights how impressive and multifaceted our students are,” says Orsen. “They did an amazing job preparing for the Spelling Bee and it showed in their success on stage.”

Sofie now advances to the Anne Arundel County Spelling Bee in March, where she will compete against other local middle school students. The winner of that competition will advance to the Scripps National Spelling Bee, held annually in May at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. Congratulations to Sofie and all the other Middle School students who competed.

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