Franklin Spelling Bee Winners

Written by 6^th grade journalist Heidi Nguyen

Every year, the teachers’ union in our school district (FMEA) sponsors a district-wide Spelling Bee for students in 3^rd to 8^th grades. This is a contest where students compete to spell a selection of words. Each school in the Franklin-McKinley district hosts their own school spelling bee with a written spelling test. Then, they send the school “winners” to the final “District Bee.”

This year, students had to try to spell 20 words correctly, plus a “bonus” word. Approximately 35 to 40 Franklin students participated in the Spelling Bee this year - Wow!  According to Mrs. Witmeyer, “I expected that at least 10 or so students would participate from each grade level. What really happened was that the 3rd grade participated the most, and the 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th grades only had a few participants each.”

When a student is qualified for the district spelling bee, they would have to compete with other students in their grade level, from all over the district. One student that was qualified for the district spelling bee, and had attended, was 6^th grader Angelina Luu Phan, from Mrs. Boram’s class. She said, “I was really excited. There were many students from different schools that were there too!’’ Although Angelina did not win at the “District Bee,” she really enjoyed her chance to represent our school.

The winners for the 2018 Franklin Spelling Bee:

• In 3rd grade there was a 3-way tie, between Kalu Mola, Emmanuel Salazar, and Angelene Nguyen.
• In 4^th, Richelle Nguyen
• In 5^th, Bill Ha
• In 6^th, Angelina Luu Phan

Lastly, the students with the top 3 spelling scores for the whole school, were qualified for the “District Bee”:

• 1^st place: Angelina Luu Phan, 6^th grade
• 2^nd place: Nicholas Nguyen, 6^th grade
• 3^rd Place: Andy Dieu, 6^th grade

Let’s give a special thanks to Mrs. Witmeyer for all the information and for coordinating our Franklin Spelling Bee this year!

Also, let’s thank the teachers who volunteered to give the students the spelling bee test, and correct them, too:

Mrs. Giardina, Mrs. Hsu,

Ms. Shinagawa and Mrs. Takacs