Middle School Students Vie for Spelling Champ Title

R-A-N-N-E-Y, Ranney hosted its annual Middle School Spelling Bee on Wednesday, December 8, 2010.

With support from each Middle School student and faculty member, the event and its turn-out were nothing short of G-R-E-A-T, great!

Sixteen children, grades six through eight, took part in this year’s Scripps/Howard- sponsored competition. Each year, participants are selected based on results of a Scripps/Howard qualifying test. Students with the best five test scores from each grade at Ranney qualified for round one of the national Spelling Bee hosted on its campus.

A total of 78 words, given at schools across the nation, were used throughout the Ranney School competition before a winner was chosen. They ranged from “citizen” and “abnormal,” to “sashay” and “enzyme.” After many rounds of elimination from the event, two seventh grade students, Abhimanyu Choudhary and Avneet Singh, continued to battle until the word-war finally ended with the correct spelling of “succinct,” by Abhimanyu.

As a result of his well-deserved victory, Abhimanyu will advance to the Monmouth County Spelling Bee on March 7 and 8 in Pollack Hall at Monmouth University. Should he win the Monmouth County Spelling Bee title, he, along with several other students, will continue on to Washington, DC and compete in a National Spelling Bee aired on the ESPN network. Aside from gaining recognition, students who advance to rounds two and three of the Spelling Bee are also inclined to win academic scholarships.

Congratulations to Abhimanyu Choudhary for a fine performance at the Middle School Spelling Bee, and good luck to him at the Monmouth County Spelling Bee! Also, congratulations to all other Ranney School students who qualified to participate in the Middle School Spelling Bee. They are as follows:

Grade 8

Rose Maisner

Chrissy Michael

Randy Chuan-Rong Lai

David Buckman

Audrey Effenberger

Nisha Kate

Grade 7

Shruthi Vaidyaselvan

Tessa Payer

Karl Brand

Matthew Kumar

Avneet Singh

Abhimanyu Choudhary

Grade 6

Christopher Nivera

James Wolfe

Caroline Billyard

Theodore Montalbano