Winner: Cheney takes Fannin County title
East Fannin Elementary Schools’ Cadence Cheney is the Fannin County School System’s Spelling Bee champion.
Cheney will advance to the Georgia Association of Educator’s Region One Spelling Bee at Georgia Highlands College February 22.
The district-wide competition was held at the school system’s Staff Development Center Wednesday, January 8.
Cheney, a fourth grader, went head-to-head with West Fannin’s Carson Postell for several rounds before claiming the title.
Postell, who is also in the fourth grade, bounced back after a misspelling of “hopscotch” since Cheney misspelled “Wednesday” subsequently.
However, Postell ultimately finished runner up after misspelling “military,” and Cheney followed him up by successfully spelling “gothic” and “karate” to claim the trophy.
In the second round, the two along with Blue Ridge Elementary School’s Brynlee Holt unseated Fannin County Middle School’s Lillian Powell. Powell, a sixth grader, stumbled up on the word “token,” causing herself to misspell the word.
After a vocabulary round where the participants had to pick the correct definition of a word when given two options, Holt, who is in the fifth grade, and Cheney went head-to-head as they both failed to choose the correct definition.
Postell had automatically advanced to the final round as he did not miss a definition.
The two young ladies’ spell-off went many rounds before the word “gerbils” got the best of Holt.
The district spelling bee was governed by three judges, elementary principals Alison Danner, Mathew Price and Mark Young. Chief Academic Officer Dr. Lucas Roof was the caller.