Judges clap Thursday after Abby Leger correctly spelled “Alhambra” to win the Kennebec County Spelling Bee at Cony Middle and High School in Augusta. Leger, an eighth grader at Cony, topped runner-up Abhinav Reddy, an eighth grader at St. Michael School in Augusta. Both will go on to compete at the Maine State Spelling Bee in March. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
AUGUSTA — “Alhambra” was the winning word at this year’s Kennebec County Spelling Bee.
Definition? A 13th-century fortress in Granada, Spain, with a name derived from the Arabic word for “red,” the tint of its walls.
In the Cony Middle and High School auditorium, 11 middle schoolers from five schools competed Thursday night for two spots in the statewide spelling bee. Those spots ultimately went to eighth graders Abby Leger from Cony Middle School, who won first place, and runner-up Abhinav Reddy from St. Michael School.
It was the first time the event has been held in-person since the pandemic and was also the first time Cony Middle School hosted it. Last year, students participated in the bee, but it was virtual — a “fake bee,” according to winner Leger, who won that competition, too.
After Reddy and Leger made it to the final two, the spellers had to get two consecutive words right in order to win. Reddy missed “chiasmus,” which was then bounced to Leger, who spelled it correctly and proceeded to spell “Alhambra” correctly, too.
Luckily, the winning word was not the word Leger was dreading.
“Through the competition, I kept repeating, ‘Please don’t say vesuvian, please don’t say vesuvian, and of course, I got it,'” said Leger, who did have to face the word in an earlier round.
Thursday night’s county bee is part of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Abby Leger, left, gives a thumbs up as the rules for the final round are announced Thursday during the Kennebec County Spelling Bee at Cony Middle and High School in Augusta. Leger, an eighth grader at Cony, won and Abhinav Reddy, an eighth grader at St. Michael School in Augusta, finished second. Both will go on to compete at the state bee in March. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
The two winners, and an alternate, will compete against 24 spellers at the Maine Spelling Bee on March 25 at Bowdoin College. One winner from the statewide contest will then earn a spot at the 95th Scripps National Spelling Bee.
The amount of time a spelling bee goes on for can vary, as it depends on how many words the students get right or wrong. Last year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee went on for three hours and ended with the first-ever “spell off.” The Kennebec County bee at Cony went on for about an hour.
The words are provided by the state coordinator for the Scripps National Spelling Bee and are sealed until competition.
Students can ask the definition, the language of origin, to use the word in the sentence and if there are alternative pronunciations of the word in question.
Thursday night’s competition featured words such as “mullioned,” “benighted” and “Arcturus.”
Participation in the past few years in the event has dwindled, said Chris Sobiech, executive assistant to the CEO of Masthead Maine and state coordinator for the Scripps National Spelling Bee. The media company, which the Central Maine newspapers are a part of, is the state sponsor for the bee and pays the fee for the event each year.
Because of low participation across the state, two winners per county were chosen to make up the 24 state-level participants. Only 12 of Maine’s 16 counties held a bee this year. Sobiech said when she started sponsoring the bee in 2009, over 100 schools participated. Now, that number has dropped to 55.
Denali Garson, a sixth grader at Stepping Stones Montessori School in Chelsea, spells a word Thursday during the Kennebec County Spelling Bee at Cony Middle and High School in Augusta. Garson finished third and is an alternate to compete at the state bee in March. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
“There are some schools that are passionate about it and others that just don’t have the resources,” Sobiech said, adding that each school has to pay a fee of nearly $175 to have a bee.
Emily Darby, an eighth grade English Language Arts teacher at Cony Middle School, is one of the teachers who is passionate about the spelling bee.
Darby brought the spelling bee to Cony last year after a discussion with the administration and said that it serves as an alternative competition to students who might not want to participate in sports.
And, simply, she “loves words.”
“Sports are valuable and teach life lessons with practicing and winning and losing, but sports aren’t everyone’s thing and other competitions, like academic competitions, are great too,” Darby said.
Abhinav Reddy, left, an eighth grader at St. Michael School, finished second; Abby Leger, an eighth grader at Cony won; and Denali Garson, a sixth grader at Stepping Stones Montessori School in Chelsea, took third Thursday night at the Kennebec County Spelling Bee at Cony Middle and High School in Augusta. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
Darby said in preparation for the event, the students were excited to participate and that everyone took it “very seriously” as the official event can become nerve-wracking.
Leger said the key to her spelling success is reading.
“I read a lot,” she said. “I pick up words from there. I learned this year, that when reading I note the words down that I don’t know and Google them to see what they mean. I go from there. The spelling is second nature. I just hear the word and it pops up.”
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