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It took 10 rounds, an hour and some nail-biting tension for Chris Breault, a sixth-grader from Eisenhower Elementary, to win the first round of the county spelling bee.
Out of a field of 21 fifth- and sixth-grade students, Breault correctly spelled "evocative" to take the title Monday at the First United Methodist Church in Warsaw.
The first round started with a bang when Emily Ahlersmeyer successfully spelled "dinosauric."
The first student out in the first round missed "mammoth," and the second lost on "misstep."
Four more dropped out in round two and the only one in round three to miss was on "lesion."
Round four claimed three more, one because the speller did not capitalize "Mormon" and one because the student spelled "throes" as "throws."
Some of the contestants shifted from foot to foot and some planted their feet as though they were going to swing a bat, but all of them showed remarkable poise and self-assurance.
The words got progressively harder as the bee continued, and round five claimed five contestants on such words as "havoc," "playwright" and "ruefully."
Four students made it to round seven, but "solace" and "mesozoic" took two out, leaving only Breault and Jason Seaberg, a sixth-grader from Madison Elementary.
Seaberg first missed "benign," and Breault correctly spelled it. But for Breault's final word he mistakenly added an -ist to "contortion," and the word went to Seaberg, who spelled it correctly.
Finally, in the 10th round, Seaberg missed "optician," which Breault got right, and when Breault correctly spelled "evocative," he took the title for the elementary competition.
The son of Mary and Mike Breault, he also received a $2,500 Richard Long scholarship, which will be held in trust for him until he graduates from high school.
Seventh- and eighth-graders will square off at 7 o'clock tonight at First United Methodist Church, and the winner from tonight will take on Breault at 7 p.m. Wednesday in a live broadcast on WRSW AM and FM.
Because of a lack of information, last week's article on the spelling bee did not include the names of the Leesburg and Claypool elementary school contestants. Sarah Flinn was Monday's contestant from Leesburg, and Matthew Shively represented Claypool. Also, the speller from Syracuse Elementary was incorrectly listed as Zachary Taylor and should have been Zachary Davis.
