Local News

Oroville Speller to travel to National Spelling Bee

Mar 25, 2016

It was an impressive word list that greeted spellers Thursday evening, March 24th in East Wenatchee at the North Central Washington Regional Spelling Bee sponsored by the Washington Apple Education Foundation (WAEF). 42 students from grades 4^th - 8^th qualified to participate in the regional spelling bee representing schools in Okanogan, Grant, Chelan and Douglas counties. Each of the participants earned their place in the regional spelling bee by scoring as one of the top two spellers in their local, school spelling bee.

The winning word was rutherford for Oroville sixth grade student Leo Chen who survived 17 rounds to capture this year’s title and win a trip to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in the Washington D.C. area in May. Rutherford is from an English name and is defined as a unit of strength of a radioactive source corresponding to one million disintegrations per second.

Faith Kruse, a seventh grade student at Cashmere Middle School earned second place and Morgen Owens Elementary (Chelan) fifth grade student Olivia Strandberg placed third.

The NCW Regional Spelling Bee, held at Eastmont Junior High School, was presented by the Washington Apple Education Foundation for the 5th year. The format was of a traditional “spelldown” with each student receiving one word per round. At the end of each round, those who spelled their words correctly continued onto the next round. Approximately 300 guests filled the auditorium to cheer on the spellers.

In addition to the six-day trip to Washington DC to participate in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, this year’s champion won a one-year subscription to the Encyclopedia Britannica’s online edition, a copy of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary from Merriam-Webster and the Samuel Louis Sugarman Award.

The second place winner received a $25 gift certificate from the Academic Toolbox in Wenatchee and a Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. The third place winner also received a Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary.

The Washington Apple Education Foundation (WAEF) is the charity of the tree fruit industry. Founded in 1994, WAEF coordinates, promotes and develops charitable activities reflecting tree fruit industry member priorities. The organization is best known for its scholarship program. In 2015 WAEF awarded over $850,000 in scholarship aid to students raised in tree fruit industry communities.

For more information on WAEF or the NCW Regional Spelling Bee, contact the WAEF office at (509) 663-7713 or www.waef.org.