Goessel students take first, second in county spelling bee
Wednesday's Marion County Spelling Bee came down to two final words: jinx and flaky.
Cameron Voth spelled those correctly, and by doing so he became the champion of the 2003 countywide spelling bee. It was held at the Hillsboro High School auditorium.
Voth, a seventh grader at Goessel Junior High School, went down to the wire with another Goessel student: Samantha Campbell, an eighth grader.
The two were the final competitors in Wednesday's bee, which featured 24 of the county's top spellers from all five school districts and area home schools.
The third-place winner was Elise Heyen, a fourth grader at Hillsboro Elementary School. Heyen was originally an alternate after taking third place in the HES bee, but she got to participate in Wednesday's bee because the school's first-place winner, Jacob Fish, was sick.
After misspellings of "venison" and "testimonial" cut the group of 24 down to 12 and then 10, the final five standing had two Hillsboro students (Heyen and Adam Dirks), two Goessel students (Campbell and Voth), and one Centre student.
The final two competitors, Voth and Campbell, went through several sets of words, from "holocaust" to "corduroy" to "lethargic." Finally, Campbell misspelled "jinx," leaving Voth an opening. He correctly spelled both "jinx" and "flaky," winning the title.
