Spelling Bee

SMITHSBURG - The final competition of the Smithsburg Middle School geography bee was held in January and when the dust cleared, three students came out on top. Tymon Walker-Cameron was the first-place winner, Lauren Greenwood took second place and Natalie Kauffman came in third. To qualify for the Maryland State Geography Bee, Tymon must have one of the top 100 scores on a written test completed after the school's geography bee is over. o In other competition at Smithsburg Middle, Chris Henderson and Jacob Moore finished first and second in the school's spelling bee for sixth-graders.

Boosnsboro Middle School held a spelling bee Jan. 9 and in the end, three winners were still standing out of about 40 students. The three winners were Aidan Thaggard, first place; Zohaib Raja, second place; and Joshua Nazaire, third place.

Seven Heritage Academy students participated in the Association of Christian Schools International District Spelling Bee Nov. 10 at Woodstream Christian Academy in Mitchellville, Md. Participating students were fifth-graders Todd Brennan and Brady Clark; sixth-grader Ian Rohrbaugh; seventh-graders Aaron Anderson and Philip Rowe; and eighth-graders Jonathon Kriner and Tristan Prejean. In the fifth-grade bee, Brady placed eighth and Todd placed second. In the eighth-grade bee, Tristan placed second.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- He watched some girls grab their hair, and a few boys sigh in frustration. For more than an hour, he sat in the back row calmly, with his hands folded over one another. Charles Smith was not worried. The Hancock Middle-Senior High School student knew the words the other children were being asked to spell. Gosling. Rew. No problem, he thought. Though, he admitted, he was a bit nervous. After all, it was the 13-year-old's first time competing in the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee. Two hundred and eighty-eight students -- the largest number of spellers in the event's history -- competed in the first round Thursday in Washington, D.C. Charles, an eighth-grader from Hancock, was not among the 90 spellers who advanced beyond the preliminary round Thursday.

The following events are happening this week in Washington County Public Schools: Today Teacher Appreciation Week AP Exams through Friday Boonsboro Elementary - Staff Appreciation Week. Clear Spring High - Future Educators of America meeting, 3:30 p.m.; Athletic Boosters meeting, 7 p.m. Clear Spring Middle - Family Life for seventh-graders, through Friday; PTSA meeting. Conococheague Elementary - Spelling bee for first-graders.

It was about 1992 and we were riding back to Hagerstown from a spelling bee The Herald-Mail sponsored back then in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. My colleague was lamenting the state of the economy, then in recession under President George Herbert Walker Bush, or Bush Sr., if you will. What should Bush do that he isn't doing, I asked. "If only he'd do something, anything," he said. Today I have something like that feeling and I'm sure a lot of people share it. Everything important in the nation seems to be drifting, with no one exercising any authority or providing leadership.

HAGERSTOWN -- Charles Smith was not derelict in his spelling Saturday, and in fact, managed to spell "derelict" correctly in the third round of the eighth-grade contest Saturday afternoon at the 29th annual Washington County Spelling Bee at Western Heights Middle School. Moments later, Charles spelled "dechlorinate" in the fourth round to win the competition. Charles, last year's seventh-grade winner and a student at Hancock Middle-Senior High School, will represent the area at the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee May 29 and 30 in Washington, D.C. The local spelling bee is sponsored by The Herald-Mail.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. (AP) - You might call it the cherry on top. Jessica Shakesprere is headed to the Scripps National Spelling Bee after winning a local competition with the word "maraschino. " The 11-year-old is a student at The Country Day School in Charles Town, W.Va. The Tri-County Spelling Bee took place in Martinsburg on Saturday, and pitted the area's top 34 spellers against one another. The national spelling competition will be held in Washington, D.C., this May.

It was the difference between an "ab" sound and an "ob" sound, which normally wouldn't be a big deal, but this was a spelling bee where one letter can mean the difference between winning or losing. We were in Bowie, Md., a few weeks ago. My son had won his grade level and had made it to the final round of competition. The first word in the finals was "bulldozer. " My initial thought was, "Is this the final round or the round for beginners?" As any veteran spelling bee participant can tell you, seemingly easy words often are interspersed between obscure ones.

Today - Senior information and assistance with Liz Church, 10 a.m. Sept. 6 - Bingo, 10 a.m. Sept. 7 - Exercise, 9:30 a.m.; UNO or dominoes, 10 a.m. Sept. 10 - Trivial pursuit, 10 a.m. Sept. 11 - Van stop at shopping center, 9:30 a.m.; "Heartburn" with Ita Kavanagh, 10 a.m. Sept. 12 - "Nutrition Checkup - How does your diet measure up?" and exercise with Helen House, 10 a.m. Sept. 13 - Bingo, 10 a.m. Sept. 14 - Exercise, 9:30 a.m.; UNO or dominoes, 10 a.m. Sept.