MOUNT VERNON — The 60th Annual Knox County Spelling Bee brought out the competitive side of 19 area middle schoolers with a flair for spelling and love for words.
Bryce Phillips, an eighth-grader from East Knox, placed first, and Kristen Cobb, a seventh-grader at Fredericktown, who was last year’s and 2018’s county champion, was this year’s runner-up. Her brother, Brandon Cobb, participated in the contest again this year, and was eliminated the round before Kristen. He placed runner-up last year, and was champion in 2017.
“I honestly didn’t expect to get this far, but it feels nice,” Phillips said. He said he studied for the bee with his brother, who sat down with him and read him the words he might be quizzed on. Phillips qualified for regionals, where he hopes to score a win.
Phillips and Cobb went head-to-head for several rounds, and Cobb accepted second place graciously.
“I still get to take the test for regional, and I still got a trophy,” Cobb said. “Whatever happens, happens. I’m proud for everyone else, and I already have two wins under my belt.”
From salamanders to hyperion, the words the students were quizzed on could trip up anyone. The list of words came from the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee, but after the students flew through the 225 words on the list, they moved onto the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, meaning they were then quizzed on words they hadn’t had the opportunity to study.
Parents sat anxiously in the audience, nodding along with every letter their student carefully said, and silent words of encouragement were passed between parents and their nervous student. The word that tripped up the first eliminated student was “messenger,” along with other words such as “vinyl” and “crossbow.”
The word “crossbow” struck a debate between the judges and a few members of the audience. Knox County Commissioners Thom Collier, Teresa Bemiller and Bill Purse were this year’s judges. The debate was over whether or not it was up to the student to repeat back the word, or for the judges and pronouncer Don Garvic, coordinator of the event as well as of Gifted and Enrichment Programming at Mount Vernon City Schools District, to ensure the student has the correct word. The student mispronounced the word before spelling it, leading to the misspelling of the word. Audience members argued that the judges should have stopped and corrected the student before he spelled the word he misheard. Collier declared that it was up to the student to ask for pronunciation or sentence usage, and ruled his decision final, resulting in the student losing the round.
Hand grazes and high five’s of solidarity were passed between students that lost rounds, and a few rounds ended in tears. Garvic mentioned at the end of the night that the students worked hard to get to where they were, and beat out possibly hundreds of other students in their prospective grades to make it to the county level.
Participants included:
Centerburg: Luke Ross, fifth grade; Ally Wilhelm, sixth grade; Addison Staats, seventh grade; Nathaniel Carlisle, eighth grade.
East Knox: Quentin Wilson, fifth grade; Zachary Lowe, sixth grade; Hayden Baker, seventh grade; Bryce Phillips, eighth grade.
Mount Vernon: Presley Vincent, sixth grade, Kaitlyn Thompson, seventh grade; Connor Conant, eighth grade.
Danville: Max Sawicki, fifth grade; Clayton Vance, sixth grade; Daniel Bradley, seventh grade; Brayton Muncie, eighth grade.
Fredericktown: Graham Overholt, fifth grade; Caitlin Roddy, sixth grade; Kristen Cobb, seventh grade; Brandon Cobb, eighth grade.
