11 kids competed in the Crookston School District spelling bee at the Crookston High School auditorium on Wednesday afternoon, and seventh-grader Odin Prudhomme won the competition. Odin is the son of Randy and Ann Prudhomme and stays active through his involvement in scouting, football, basketball, and tennis. His favorite class at school is gym.
Students from fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grades qualified for the contest, three from each grade. A seventh-grade student chose not to compete. “We take written spelling bees in school, and we take words from the Scripts list, and we make up a master list, and we give all the kids a written spelling test. And then we select the top three from each grade,” said Mrs. Sue Wagner. “And then if we need to break any ties, we usually have tiebreaker words. And then sometimes it’s the fourth or fifth place because we always have a few kids who are just not comfortable being on stage doing it. And I’m not going to force them.“
Spelling Bee competitors –
Fifth graders – Kindred Auginash, Owen Salveson, Rob Wilson
Sixth graders – De Marion Isum, Micah Pyles, Dreshawn Robertson
Seventh graders – Cora Jackson, Odin Prudhomme
Eighth graders – Grayson Howland, Melody Ortiz, Hayden Ricard
All 11 contestants advanced through the first two rounds. The first contestant was eliminated in the third round on the word – pulley. The fourth round saw another contestant eliminated on the word “jarringly” and another one eliminated on the word “neutron. “These kids are amazing. I was really excited to see so many get through several rounds,” said Wagner. “I always want the kids to all feel some success. So it was great to get through, I think, three rounds with everybody. But the words definitely become more difficult as we go on.”
Before the fifth round, Wagner mentioned that the kids were doing a great job because they probably hadn’t heard of some of the words that they were having to spell. “Some of these words, and I tried to pronounce them very clearly, but some of these words that are your multi-syllable words do get quite challenging to remember the letters that you’ve already said and continue forward,” said Wagner. “But then sometimes it’s words like tome, T-O-M-E, that can be difficult too because they’ve never heard of it, although that young man did spell it correct.”
The fifth round saw another student eliminated on the word “mortar” and another one on “frenzied.” The sixth round had six contestants remaining, as the words continued to become more challenging. Another contestant was eliminated on the words “lentil” and “decreed.”
There were four contestants remaining at the start of the seventh round. One contestant was eliminated on the word “emaciate,” and another was eliminated on the word “Pestle.” The next contestant spelled helix correctly. The next contestant got “Shephardass” wrong.
Prudhomme was the only competitor in the eighth round and had to spell synergy. Prudhomme knew it and spelled it correctly to win the spelling bee. “It felt great. She said the word, and I was like, okay, I already won,” said Prudhomme, who also said, “I was nervous for most of the words. I knew most of them, but there was probably one or two I didn’t.”
Wagner said Prudhomme was great. “He was in it last year as well. And I know he was frustrated. He went out on a word last year that he didn’t think he should have misspelled. So it was fun to see a seventh grader get in,” said Wagner. “I know Hayden, who was an eighth grader, was in it again this year and had hoped to return to Thief River. But Odin got the better of it this time.”
Prudhomme advances to the Regional Spelling Bee on February 4 at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls. The spelling bees are affiliated with the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
