NORTH WEBSTER – After winning the middle school division in six rounds, Tippecanoe Valley Middle School seventh-grader Riley Weitzel won the 2012 Kosciusko County Spelling Bee Championship in seven rounds.
To win the county bee Thursday night, Weitzel went head to head against Warsaw Christian School sixth-grader Brianna Pitts, who won the elementary school division Tuesday night.
Weitzel will advance to the 58th annual regional Journal Gazette Spelling Bee, scheduled for March 17, at the Auer Auditorium in the IPFW Rhinehart Music Center in Fort Wayne.
Pitts started the county championship spell-off by correctly spelling “timorously” in round one. Weitzel then correctly spelled “tableau.” Pronouncer Dr. James Bowling, Grace College, then hurled the words “jambalaya,” “mortgage,” “debris,” “retrospect,” “circumlocution,” “polenta,” “cartilage” and “vehemence” at the spellers.
Then in round six, Pitts misspelled “miso” as “meiso.” Weitzel correctly spelled “sultan” and then “gunnysack” for the victory.
Before getting to the county championship contest, Weitzel had to compete against seventh-graders Evan Krueger, Milford School; and Dylan Grubbs, Edgewood Middle School; and eighth-grader Elizabeth Brown, Lakeview Middle School, to advance.
By the fifth round, only Weitzel and Brown were left standing. However, after Brown misspelled “tutelage,” Weitzel correctly spelled “posthumously” and “beatific” for the win.
Riley is the son of Eric and Patricia Weitzel, Silver Lake.
Asked how he felt about winning, Riley said, “Pretty good. I didn’t know I was going to win!”
Every night, he said he practiced spelling for 30 minutes. He said he is really nervous about competing at Fort Wayne because there will be a “big audience.”
In addition to receiving a trophy provided by Kosciusko REMC, the winners of the two local grade division bees also each receive a $2,500 Richard R. Long Scholarship. The scholarship is given in recognition of Long’s many years of service to the children, teachers and parents of North Webster School and in honor of his work for the International Palace of Sports, now known as the Shoop Sports and Youth Foundation.
The Shoop Foundation funds the spelling bee scholarships to help provide future higher education for the spelling bee winners.
Kosciusko REMC sponsors the local competition with additional support for the regional spelling bee provided by IPFW and the area Touchstone Energy Electric Cooperatives, according to a press release provided previously by REMC.
Judges for this year’s spelling bee were Doug Hoffert, retired Madison Elementary School teacher; Pam Long, North Webster Community Public Library librarian; and Amy Miller, Wawasee High School language arts teacher. Recorder was Dr. Tom Edington, Wawasee Schools superintendent.
Kristine Woodard, North Webster Elementary School principal, is the local spelling bee coordinator this year. North Webster Elementary School is at 5745 N. CR 750E, North Webster.
Kosciusko REMC is a Touchstone Energy® electric cooperative serving more than 17,000 members throughout Kosciusko County and into surrounding counties.
