WBCH offers this space to area school superintendents to highlight activities in their districts. This posting is from Rich Franklin, BISD superintendent.
“Hastings Middle School eighth grader Matthew Pattok competed in the Greater Grand Rapids Spelling Bee Tuesday night, in a long bee that featured several entertaining moments. A number of Mexican-style foods came up in the word list, including chimichanga, quesadilla, tortilla, and mole. Pattok had the ironic experience of being asked to spell "paddock," which he did correctly!
Another student, in separate rounds, drew the words "taj" and "mahal." The grueling contest was won by Jack Lado, a seventh grader from East Grand Rapids, who correctly spelled “typhlology” and “bollo” to win after last year’s winner, eighth grader Aashray Mandala from Grand Haven, stumbled on “myringitis.”
See if you could have spelled some of the other words that students went out on: flexure, chalupa, unmelodious, shirring, wineskin, bequeath (vocabulary round), bevel (vocabulary), wikiwiki, chronic, centrality, pfeffernuss, entomologist, worrisome, indescribable, graffiti, hibachi (vocabulary), and schadenfreude.
The Barry ISD hosted the regional spelling bee in February which Pattok won to go on to the national-qualifying bee in Grand Rapids. The winner of the Greater Grand Rapids bee will now compete at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., May 27-June 2.”
