**WBCH offers this space to area school superintendents to highlight news in their districts. This posting is from Barry Intermediate School District Superintendent Richard Franklin.
“Jacob Shorey, an eighth grader from Delton Kellogg Middle School, was the runner-up at last night's Greater Grand Rapids Spelling Bee. Jacob took
second place out of 21 regional spelling bee winners at the national-qualifying bee.
His downfall was "pandowdy," a spiced, deep-dish
apple pie (sadly rather ironic for a spelling bee held on Pi Day). Jacob was the back-to-back champion of the Barry ISD Regional Spelling Bee. This year's regional bee involved 28 students from eight area schools. Students in grades four through eight qualify for the regional bee by winning their school bees. Only the winner of the regional bee competes against the winners of twenty other regional bees at the Greater Grand Rapids bee.
The 40th Greater Grand Rapids Spelling Bee was held March 14, at the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids. The winner was Aashray Mandala, a
seventh grader from Grand Haven Lakeshore Middle School, who correctly spelled "semester" and "legislation" for the title.
Mandala will compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC, May 28-June 2.
To test your own spelling acumen, the complete list of words missed by spellers were: gondola, cognition, kahuna, layette, pampas, Crusoe, mirage, gestapo,
macadamia, junta, wainscot, hippopotamus, aul, coffle, melba (vocabulary round), dewlap, hummable, urbane, dunnage, pandowdy.
For more information about involvement in next year's Barry ISD Regional Spelling Bee, contact Rich Franklin, BISD superintendent, at rfranklin@barryisd.org or 269-945-9545.
