Marlinton Middle School student wins county spelling bee

Brianna Hefner, a Marlinton Middle School 8th grader, won the Pocahontas County Spelling Bee on Wednesday with the word “cabana.”

Hannah Buly in 5th grade at Hillsboro Elementary School and Kyle Cohenour in 8th grade at Green Bank Elementary-Middle School won second and third place.

Hefner and an alternate will be able to travel to Charleston to compete in the regional competition, sponsored by the Charleston Gazette-Mail, at Capitol High School on March 14.

Hefner said she was surprised to win the competition.

“I don’t know, I didn’t think I was going to win, but I did, so I guess I’m happy,” Hefner said.

Twenty six students contended in the spelling bee, which was held at Marlinton Middle School and coordinated by Language Arts Teacher Jan Jonese.

“We had students from all over the county. The way they qualified to come to the county spelling bee is they have a school spelling bee that they participate in, and we take the winners from grades 5 through 8, the top 3 places from each school are participants for the county bee, so that’s how they qualify,” Jonese said.

“The kids did a really good job today. They spelled some really, really difficult words, and we went quite a few rounds, so I feel like they did really well.”

Even with spell check, spelling will always be important, she said.

“I think the spelling bee’s really important because spelling sadly is kind of becoming a lost art with spell check and everything, but you do have to be able to spell well enough to select the correct word in spell check when you’re typing in word processing, so it’s still important to know how to spell correctly,” she said.

Story By

Kelly Taber

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