“Terrify. T-e-r-r-i-f-y. Terrify.”
Nailed it.
With that correct spelling, fifth grader Logan Baker lasted 14 rounds and beat out 17 other contestants to win the Cleveland Spelling Bee, which was held in the new gym on Thursday.
For the final six rounds, Baker squared off with seventh grader Evie Remiger. After Baker correctly spelled “quip,” Remiger tripped up on “salute.”
Stumbling on “fiddlehead” in the eighth round, eighth grader Jax Leagjeld took third. A fiddlehead, defined pronouncer Virginia Grabow, is a furled frond of certain ferns that are often eaten as greens.
Fifth grader Annalise Rysdam also exited in the eighth round after missing on “intertwine.”
To make it to Thursday’s meet, each grade had a contest of its own. Others competing were fifth graders Blake Christiansen and Sawyer Roemhildt; sixth graders Evan Hoffmann, Lily McMillen, Jocelyn Clark, Anthony Geppert and last year’s champion Hadley Thompson; seventh graders Harper Rutz, Blake Stocker, Toby Ness and the 2021 champion Mattea Grandaw; and eighth graders Jakob Hollerich, Cece Gair and Chris Corona.
Alternates were fifth graders José Castro Arnston and Mackenzie Borer and sixth grader Andrew Giebel.
Words got progressively more difficult each round. In the first round, “barely,” “dazzle,” plunger” and “edge” reduced the lineup by four. No one left missed a word during the second round, but in round three, “sudsy,” and “oddity” eliminated two contestants.
With its double T, “nighttime” was the only elimination word in round four, while “hungrily,” “wheezy” and “disdain” took out competitors in round five. All six remaining survived round six, but “fascinated” and “poisonous” were knockout words in round seven.
Competing in his first-ever bee, Baker also correctly spelled “crown,” “worth,” “bursting,” “marble,” “expressway,” “invisible,” “forearms,” “drawers,” “ambush,” “precious,” “devotion” and “sacred.”
Baker practiced for the bee by reviewing the study packet. He likes spelling and is a good speller in Katie Wolf’s class.
Judging the bee were junior Maya Lassiter, paraprofessional Joanne Starke and counselors Shanna Roloff and Megan Peterson. Grabow is a retired CHS librarian and English teacher.
Baker will advance to the regional bee, which will be held at South Central College in North Mankato in February.