Fairland West names school champion

ROME TOWNSHIP — The Lawrence County Spelling Bee is set for Dec. 7 and schools throughout the region are selecting their champions to compete.

Fairland West Elementary hosted its school spelling bee on Thursday and nine classroom champions and one alternate took part in the event.

The students displayed their mastery of the words, selected from the Scripps National Spelling Bee list and read by former English teacher Pam Lee, and the event stretched into 23 rounds and 40 minutes of competition.

“We’ve never had it go this long,” assistant principal Sandy Joseph, who organized the event, said.

It was several rounds before even the first student was eliminated. Eventually, it came down to three students: last year’s champion Emma Barnette, Morgan Black and Ben Davidson, all of the fifth grade.

Barnette was eliminated after misspelling “tenaciously,” leaving Black and Davidson.

Once Black was eliminated, Davidson won the bee by correctly spelling “insulin.”

Davidson, the son of Matt and Kim Davidson, said it felt “good,” when asked about his victory.

“He’s been studying for a few weeks,” his father said.

As the school winner, Davidson will take part in the county bee next month at the municipal center in Ironton.

Regardless of whether they win at the county level, students who qualify through an online spelling test are eligible to compete in the regional bee, which takes place in Athens in early 2017.