Navarro succeeds brother as spelling bee champion
JESSIEVILLE — The Navarro family from the Lakeside School District continued its run Friday with a fourth straight first-place winner in the Garland County Spelling Bee.
Aly Navarro, an eighth-grade student at Lakeside High School, won the county spelling bee Friday morning in the Jessieville School District Performing Arts Center. This is her final year of eligibility in the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee competition. “It’s my last year and I feel very happy,” Navarro said. She is the younger sister of A.J. Navarro, who won first place in Garland County three consecutive years after he placed second as a fifth-grader in 2013. He also placed second in the state spelling bee as a seventh-grader in 2015. The siblings often competed at the school level before his first year
at the high school.
“I was happy for him, but I am happy that I finally have a year to win,” Navarro said.
Navarro said she was thankful for her brother’s help as he worked with her to study for her competitions this school year. She will now advance to the 2017 Arkansas Spelling Bee, presented by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 4 at Central Baptist College in Conway. Only county winners qualify for the state competition.
“I’m going to study the list, and he’s probably going to help me,” Navarro said. “I’m just going to do the best I can.”
Nine local winners participated in the county spelling bee Friday. Rule changes this year restricted participation to only school winners instead of the limit of three students per school in previous years.
Navarro needed 22 rounds to outlast runner-up Breya Raney, a fifth-grade student at Jessieville Elementary School. Navarro and Raney were perfect for six rounds after they were the final two spellers remaining.
Raney was tripped up in the 22nd round by “hassock,” an upholstered footstool or ottoman. Navarro correctly spelled “seersucker” to complete the round.
Her championship word was “threshold.” Other words Navarro correctly spelled during the competition included patronymic, Cotswold, pterodactyl, sultan, geothermal, mathematics, hypothesis and contraband.
The 2015 competition lasted 11 rounds, twice as long as the previous year. A.J. Navarro needed 12 rounds to outlast his fellow Lakeside students in 2016.
Seventh-grade students Blake McLelland, Hot Springs Middle School, and Ben Romero, Jessieville Middle School, exited in the 15th round. They were the first spellers eliminated since the ninth round.
Lakeside Middle School fifth-grader Gavin Anders earned fifth place. Anders placed second in 2016 as a fourth-grade student at Lakeside Intermediate School.
The youngest speller in this year’s competition, Hayden Heiple, is a student at the intermediate school. Heiple won the school’s spelling bee and advanced to the eighth round in the county bee to place sixth as a second-grader.
Other local winners to participate were Sandler Moore, Hot Springs Intermediate School; Kenlee Motley, Fountain Lake Middle School Cobra Digital Prep Academy; and Lauren Scrivner, Park International Baccalaureate Magnet School.
Amanda Bradley, a middle school math and English teacher at Jessieville, served as the spelling bee coordinator. Beth Stone, library media specialist for Jessieville’s high school and media school, served as the pronouncer. Bradley was joined at the judges’ table by Joyce Barone and Carol Lowery.