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By Carey Reeder | Managing Editor

The 2024 Chilton County Spelling Bee was held on Feb. 2 at LeCroy Career Technical Center between the school spelling bee winners from all the schools in Chilton County. In the end, Clanton Middle School’s Hudson Carroll was crowned the champion, outlasting Lindsey Pitts of Clanton Intermediate School.

Nicole Hoffman, organizer of the spelling bee, welcomed everyone to the event and thanked the students, and parents, for their hard work to get there.

The rules for the spelling bee were the competitors must say the word first, spell the word and say the word again for it to qualify as a correct spelling. The spellers could ask the judge for the origin, a different pronunciation, the word be used in a sentence and other things associated with the word to assist them in the spelling.

The words in the first round started off easier, such as hazelnut and auction, and the words got progressively more difficult as the rounds went on. By the fourth round, the words had jumped to a higher difficulty like kindred and burial, and only four contestants remained — Shay Carroll of Thorsby Middle School, Karma Bonagura of Verbena Elementary School, Pitts and Carroll.

Easterling and Bonagura bowed out in the fifth round, leaving Pitts and Carroll to battle it out for four rounds into the ninth round. Pitts misspelled her word in the ninth round, and in order for Carroll to win, he had to spell a word correctly.

“I studied over a bunch of words, and I went and got my dad to say them to me and I spelled them out loud,” Carroll said. “It paid off, and (my nerves) were fine until there were two people left and my heart started beating fast.”

The word Carroll got was satchel, and he said he knew how to spell it as soon as he heard it. Carroll spelled it successfully, and was named the winner.

 

2024 Chilton County Spelling Bee Competitors

Karma Bonagura, Verbena Elementary School (3rd-5th grade)

Brody Brasher, Isabella Middle School (6th-8th grade)

Hudson Carroll, Clanton Middle School

Shay Carroll, Thorsby Elementary School (3rd-5th grade)

Ryleigh Cofer, Isabella Elementary School (3rd-5th grade)

BriLee Cunningham, Verbena Middle School (6th-8th grade)

Breanna Easterling, Thorsby Middle School (6th-8th grade)

Camdyn Gray, Maplesville Elementary School (3rd-5th grade)

Juan Jimenez, Jemison Intermediate School

Braydon McCormick, Maplesville Middle School (6th-8th grade)

Lindsey Pitts, Clanton Intermediate School