Sills Super Speller

FARMINGTON STUDENT WINS COUNTY BEE

After competing in the Washington County Spelling Bee for five years, Weston Sills, 12, of Farmington, brought home the championship trophy and $200 from the 2017 contest.

Weston, a seventh- grader at Randall G. Lynch Middle School, won the spelling bee on Jan. 14 with the word “phonograph,” but he said some of the harder words he spelled out during the contest were “mayonnaise” and “stollen.”

Weston has represented a Farm- ington school at the county spelling bee since he was in third grade. His first year he won the spelling bee for Jerry “Pop” Williams Elementary School and advanced to the countywide contest.

The next two years, he competed as the representative for Ledbetter Intermediate and then in sixth and seventh grades, he won the middle school competition to advance to the next level.

Last year, Weston came in third place. His highest placement before then was probably 10th place, he said.

Terry Lakey, principal, said this is the first time a middle school student has won the county spelling bee and he doesn’t remember anyone winning it from another Farmington school. Lakey has been at the middle school since it opened in 2000.

Lakey said the winner’s school gets the opportunity to host the next county spelling bee so Lynch Middle School will have that honor in 2018.

“He worked really hard for it,” Lakey said. “Weston is a good student and this was a goal of his.

He did it. He brought it home.”

Weston said his mom quizzes him from a list of more than 1,000 words given to students to study each year for the spelling bee. Words are taken from this list for the competition but if the contestants go through all the words, then they go off-list, he said.

For 2017, 43 students competed through 46 rounds and they went through all the words on the published list. Weston said his winning word did not come from the published list.

Weston said he has always liked spelling and has been good at it but believes he’s become better by studying the spelling words for the contest. He also likes to read and play baseball. His favorite subject in school is math.

Next up, Weston will compete in the Arkansas Spelling Bee on March 4 at University of Central Arkansas in Conway. But he’s also looking past the state contest and said he hopes to be able to win the county spelling bee again in 2018.

ANDY SHUPE NWA DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE Weston Sills, right, of Lynch Middle School in Farmington, reacts as the field is narrowed during the Washington County Spelling Bee. Weston won the bee.

ANDY SHUPE NWA DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE Weston Sills, 12, a seventh-grader at Randall G. Lynch Middle School in Farmington, smiles after winning the Washington County Spelling Bee. Sills won with the word “phonograph.”