SANFORD, NC – SanLee Middle School sixth-grade student, Alexus Brewer, while perhaps the quietest of the contestants in this year’s Lee County Schools Spelling Bee, smiled the widest at the end of the night. She secured the District Spelling Bee Championship and earned her spot in the Carolina Panthers Regional Spelling Bee in Charlotte next month.
Some 23 contestants who won their grade-level Spelling Bee at their respective elementary and middle schools across the county competed in this year’s district event. However, after six rounds of spelling, the field of contestants had been narrowed to four students, including Brewer.
She was the lone speller to successfully complete a word in round seven, moving on to the championship round and accurately spelling “vicarious” to earn the title. Brewer said, “I really did not think I would win. I saw the words on the study packet, and I just didn’t think I would win, but I studied really hard.” She said she mostly studied on her own, but did credit her mother and her English/Language Arts teacher at SanLee, Mrs. Hoffman, for helping her get ready to win the Bee.
East Lee Middle’s Xander Seydel, Tucker Moss from SanLee Middle, and J. Glenn Edwards Elementary’s Ayden Whalen all returned to the stage for a spell off to settle awards for second, third and fourth place.
Seydel managed to correctly spell “bubonic” in the first round of spelling, while Whalen and Moss each missed their words in the round, giving Seydel second place honors. Eventually, Moss bested Whalen as Moss accurately identified the proper spelling of “equivocate” while Whalen was tripped by “decimation.”
“It was actually kind of nerve-wracking,” said the three-time District Bee veteran Seydel. “I was not really as nervous as I was my first time, but I was still pretty nervous because each year there are new people and new skill levels on the stage.”
Seydel has been in the District Bee since fourth grade at Broadway Elementary, and he not only credits Mr. Robert Newby and Ms. Gina Guerrero, Principal and Assistant Principal at East Lee, pushed him to succeed this year, but noted how important his fourth grade teacher was in getting him on the Bee stage. “My fourth grade teacher at Broadway, Mrs. Perozo, she is actually one of my favorite teachers, but she helped me know how good I was at spelling and encouraged me to get myself ready for my first Bee in fourth grade.”
Though somewhat shy, it was easy to see how excited fifth-grader Ayden Whalen was about participating in the District Bee this year, earning the top finish for an elementary school student at this year’s event. “My grandmas and my mom and dad helped me get ready for this year. I had fun and definitely want to do it again,” indicated Whalen after the conclusion.
As the top finisher in the District Bee, Brewer will move on to compete in Charlotte next month for one of four regional berths in the Scripps National Spelling, held annually in Washington, D.C.