Mill Pond crowns spelling champ

12 years ago

Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Joseph Cyr
NE-CLR-Mill Pond Bee-dc-pt-4MASTER SPELLERS — Mill Pond Elementary School named a spelling champion Jan. 16 with 18 students vying for the crown. Madisyn Merritt, left, won the competition, while Nathaniel Stoddard, right, was runner-up. With the students is Bee Master Stephanie Bubar Harris.

By Joseph Cyr

Staff Writer
    HODGDON — When it comes to spelling challenging words, Hodgon Mill Pond School seventh-grader Madisyn Merritt is a cut above the rest.

    Merritt was crowned Jan. 16 as the Mill Pond Elementary School spelling bee champion after she correctly spelled the words “supremacy” and “unchangeable.”
    Both Merritt and Stoddard will participate in the Aroostook County Spelling Bee slated for Friday, Feb. 8 at the Fox Auditorium at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. The winner of the County Bee moves on to the state Bee, held at the University of Southern Maine, March 30. The state winner moves on the National Bee May 26-June 1 in Washington, D.C.
    Lasting six rounds and a little more than 30 minutes, Mill Pond spellers were challenged with such tricky words as delicacy, rhombus, writhe and ultramarine.
    Stephanie Bubar Harris served as “Bee Master” for the event, while Sarah Harbison, Noel Pratt and Elizabeth Connors served as judges.
    Other students who participated in the bee were: sixth-graders, Katherine Ledger, Brittany Quint, Skylar DeHahn, Emma Nash, Kora Lambert and Anna Mae Sanford; seventh-graders, Seth Bartlett, Sydney Howell, Hannah Elland, Matthew Horton and Dylan Oliver; and eighth-graders, Duncan Bradshaw, Jordyn Merritt, Jessica Drew, Destinee Dhuy and Joshua Malone.