Friday, January 20, 2012
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .The top three spellers at Poland Middle School celebrated their win on the morning of Jan. 12. Taking third place was Mariah Mrofchak (left), followed by a second place finish by Brendan Gage (right), with champion speller Mark Stein (center) standing tall after his first place finish.
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .Eventual spelling bee champion Mark Stein showed great focus during an early round of Poland Middle School's Jan. 12 competition.
By SARAH FOOR
Each year, the spelling bee at Poland Middle School offers a clean slate where champion spellers from various classrooms try their luck at some of the toughest words in the dictionary.
However, something unique happened at the school’s Spelling Bee on Jan. 12 — the final showdown was a repeat of last year’s, with Brendan Gage and Mark Stein facing off.
Tough words like prognosis, sustenance, laryngitis, ridiculous and contrivance narrowed down the field by six students after only one round.
A second round of words like idiomatic, belligerent, statuesque and kaleidoscope continued to cut down the group until Mariah Mrofchak misspelled reprehensible to finish third.
Finding Gage and Stein as her final two, bee moderator Karen Russo, looked at the duo and said with a smile, “This looks oddly familiar.”
An even match, the boys ran into trouble with many of the same words until Stein correctly conquered Gage’s misspelling of camouflage and correctly handled “falsify.”
After winning in 2011 and representing PMS in the Vindicator Spelling Bee, Gage took runner-up honors this year and alternate for the regional competition. Stein improved upon his second-place finish in 2011 to win the title this year.
Russo was amused by the results, but said it offered the boys a unique opportunity.
“This is great because they can really help each other. We found during the bee that they often have trouble with the same kind of words, so they can definitely work together in the next few months and try and conquer that,” she suggested.
Gage said he’ll be happy to offer continued moral support to his friend.
“Last year, it was way tougher than I thought it would be at the regional bee. I want Mark to go really far. I’m glad he won it this year,” he said.
“I’m glad I won, too,” champion Stein said with a laugh.