The Junior High Spelling Championship for Stanislaus County for seventh and eighth graders was held on Nov. 10 at the Petersen Event Center where Will Eitelgeorge from Cardozo Middle School was among the tops spellers and received a gold medal. The Elementary Spelling Championship for grades fourth through sixth was held on Nov. 3 at Gregori High School where Andy Woodall also was among the top spellers and received a gold medal.
Woodall represented the sixth graders at Cardozo Middle School and Eitelgeorge represented the seventh graders with Adolfo Medina as his alternate.
The Stanislaus County Office of Education sponsored the Spelling Championship for both the elementary and junior high school levels.
There were 45 volunteers that served as proctors and retired educator Harry Bakker served as the Spelling Master along with 78 students from 47 schools that participated in the Elementary Spelling Championship on Nov. 3.
At the Junior High Championship there were 22 volunteers that served as proctors, 45 students from 22 schools participated in the event and Bakker again served as the Spelling Master.
Eitelgeorge competed in the Junior High Spelling Championship along with students from Blaker-Kinser, Connecting Waters, Creekside, Dutcher, Gratton, Hart-Ransom Charter, Hickman, La Loma, Mountain View, Oakdale, Oakdale Charter, Our Lady of Fatima, Paradise, Prescott, Riverbank Language Academy, Ross, Sacred Heart, Spratling, Turlock, Ustach and Walnut Grove.
The elementary schools that participated in the Championship were Chatom, Denair, Empire, Hart-Ransom, Hickman, Hughson, Keyes, Modesto City, Newman-Crows Landing, Oakdale, Our Lady of Fatima, Paradise, Patterson, Riverbank, Sacred Heart, Stanislaus Union, St. Stanislaus, Sylvan Union, Turlock, University Charter, Valley Home and Waterford.
Sixth graders, Michael Balerite from Ustach and Aren Wang from Connecting Waters were the first place winners in the competition and Skylar Nguyen from Agnes Baptist is the Alternate winner in the Elementary Spelling Championship.
First place winners in the Junior High Spelling Championship were eighth graders, Ashley Cabral from La Loma Junior High and Arya Gandhi from Prescott Junior High along with Martin Shewfelt as the alternate also from Prescott Junior High.
Balerite and Wang from the Elementary Spelling Championship will represent Stanislaus County at the state competition in Stockton on April 23, 2016. Cabral and Gandhi from the Junior High Spelling Championship will represent Stanislaus County at the state competition in San Rafael on May 14, 2016. The third place speller in each event will serve as an alternate.
