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District spelling bee Thursday at Beaty WMS

Bee. Noun. A social gathering for a specific purpose, as to carry out a communal task or hold competitions.

Example: The annual Warren County Spelling Bee will be held this Thursday at Beaty Warren Middle School.

Beaty Principal Ann Ryan said that this year’s students would be coming from Warren, Eisenhower, Youngsville, Sheffield, Tidioute, St. Joseph, and Warren County Christian School to participate. This year, Ryan said, there were no home-school children participating.

Each school holds its own spelling bee, Ryan said, with words she provides from The E.W. Scripps company, which has been providing spelling bee material to schools nationwide since 1925.

Each school is given the Scripps words and left to their own devices to decide how they want to run their spelling bees, said Ryan. Students in grades five through eight are eligible to participate. Each school is then allowed to send one winning speller, and for each 150 students a school has they are allotted one additional speller. Ryan set up the system, she said, to try and adjust for school sizes and make sure that “things are a little more fair across the district.” It’s a system, she said, also designed to work with changing school populations over time.

Retired teachers from the district generally serve as judges and callers for the events, but this year Warren Times Observer’s own Brian Ferry has been invited to judge as well. Cindy Blodgett and Sally Beckerink will be his fellow judges and Ruth Nelson will be this year’s caller, Ryan said.

Parents with spellers participating in the bee generally show up to spectate at the spelling bee,  Ryan said, but the event is open to anyone to come and watch. Those who win the county spelling bee will be eligible to participate at the Western Pennsylvania Spelling Bee at Robert Morris University in Illinois, and the winners at that competition will be eligible to participate in the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

This year’s spelling bee will be held at 9 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 9 at Beaty Warren Middle School.

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