Clay County Times-Democrat: Local News: County Spelling Bee Held at Rector (01/17/13)

Participants in the 2013 Clay County Spelling Bee were from left: Front-- Madison Martin (alternate), Louis Lin (third place), spelling champion Kourtney Chadwell, Melanie Ricker (second place) and Josh Lyman. Back--Zephyer Tinsley, Jerrica Stokes, Sarah Willis, Chandler Conyers (alternate), Will Scobey and Shawnee Boyd. (photo courtesy Clay County Courier)

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Kourtney Chadwell, an eighth grade student from Piggott High School

will represent Clay County in the March 2 Arkansas Spelling Bee in

Conway. She earned that honor Thursday of last week during

competition in the county's spelling bee held in Rector.

Three students from each school district in the county assembled in

Rector school library to determine the top speller and the county's

representative.

Ms. Chadwell spelled "forensics" to win the honors and was given $100

in cash from Piggott State Bank to help defray expenses to Conway.

Second place went to Melanie Ricker, Corning eighth grader, who was

eliminated when she misspelled "monitory." Third place finisher,

Louis Lin, a sixth grader at Piggott Elementary School, was seated by the word "beguile."

Of the nine participants, four were eliminated on the first round;

two were seated during the second round, leaving the top three who

each spelled several more words.