One of 25 spellers from south central Minnesota competing in the South Central Service Cooperative Regional Spelling Bee on Tuesday (February 17), sixth grader Ruby Page took second place.
Page lasted until the 12th round when she spelled “complementary” (things that go well together) as its synonym “complimentary” (free of charge or expressing praise).
A student from Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton won the bee and will compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C.
Leading up to the bee, which was held at South Central College in North Mankato, Page studied with her mom Casandra Page for a couple hours each weekend. There were about 4000 possible words that could be used in the contest.
The participating fifth through eighth-grade students had previously won their local bees. For Page, it was held in the new gym on January 15.
In the sixth round of that contest, Page’s classmate Brooklyn Berg errored on “differential” while Page correctly spelled “khaki.” In accordance with spelling bee rules, Page went on to the next round, where she had to spell another word correctly to win the bee. Otherwise, the bee would continue to round eight, and Berg would get another chance.
But Page correctly spelled “asphalt” for the win.
On “bombarded” and “tuxedo,” two of the 16 contestants at the Cleveland meet went out in round one. Round two elimination words were “sequence,” “fabulous,” “rickety,” “pediatric,” “democracy” and “beige,” leaving half of the 16 still in the contest for round three.
“Skewer” and “lunacy” knocked out contestants in round three. In round four, “wisdom” was the only missed word. Three of the five remaining contestants were eliminated in round five with the misspelled words “civet,” “campaign” and “conscience.”
Earlier, Page correctly spelled “mustache,” “enormous,” ‘bracken” (a tall fern), “galore,” and “mosque.”
Fifth graders competing were Liam Baker, Hunter Olson, Brodey Rutz, and Barrett Vogel. Other sixth graders competing were Ashtyn Botker, Reid Johnson, and Keegan Karels. Seventh graders competing included Jose Castro-Arntson, Elijah Johnson, Bo Kortuem and Sawyer Roemhildt. Eighth graders competing were Anthony Geppert, Steven Giebel and Brennon Holicky.
Alternates were sixth grader Addy Hoffman and fifth graders Levi Wargelin and Sam Pipal.
Former CHS English teacher and librarian Virginia Grabow was the pronouncer. The judges were administrative assistant Allison Stoffel, counselors Megan Peterson and Shanna Roloff and junior student Maile Meissner.
Helping prepare the participants were fifth-grade teachers Katie Wipperling, Connor Theis and Katie Wolf, sixth-grade teachers Brady Hahn and Bree Meyer and high school English teacher Maddie Strenke.
Page also won the Cleveland school bee and competed in the regional meet last year but was eliminated in round one. She will be eligible to compete again next year and again in 2028.
In addition to improving students’ spelling skills and increasing their vocabularies, spelling bee participation provides valuable experience in developing poise – a necessary skill for success in public speaking, performing arts and athletics.
Page is a member of Meyer’s sixth-grade class.