How many ways can you spell ‘victory?’ Merced County Spelling Bee winners announced
The Merced City School District and the Los Banos Unified School District both had winners at the Merced County Spelling Bee this week.
In the middle school competition, Cruickshank Middle School eighth grader Nicole Nguyen won first place. Fellow Cruickshank eighth-grader Kaitlyn Rockholt placed second and Winton Middle School seventh grader Mariah Dhillon finished third.
The winning word for Nguyen was “pharaoh.”
In the elementary school competition Harneet Sandhu, who is a fifth-grade student at Westside Elementary School in Los Banos, won first place. Sixth-grader Arvin Judge, who is from R.M. Miano Elementary School in Los Banos, placed second and Steven Wade, who is a fourth-grade student at Bellevue Elementary in Atwater, finished in third place.
The winning word for Sandhu was hypocrisy.
First and second place winners from both competitions represent Merced County at the state championships.
Michelle Symes, who is the director of district support services at the Merced County Office of Education, was the wordmaster for the elementary school competition. Stacy Shasky, who is the coordinator of the teacher induction program at MCOE, was the wordmaster for the middle school competition.
