Sanders County Ledger - Your Best Source For Sanders County News

It took Plains sixth-grade student Kailtlyn Ducept four rounds to retain her title as Sanders County Spelling Bee champion, repeating for a second year.

While Ducept repeated as champion, it was a 13-round battle for the second and third place finishers in Sanders County. Ayleen Keefe, a fifth-grader from Hot Springs, and David Flores, a sixth-grader from Trout Creek, went word-for-word, with Keefe taking the second-place spot. In the 13th round of the two battling for second place, Keefe spelled the word acronym correctly. Flores then misspelled cadenza, forcing Keefe to spell a final word, "tortilla," correctly to win second place. In the event that Ducept is not able to attend the Treasure State Spelling Bee in Billings on March 16, Keefe will serve as an alternate.

Ducept represented Sanders County at the state spelling bee in 2018, and will do so again March 16. Ducept said Friday after her victory that the competition was tougher this year, and she's looking forward to returning to Billings for the state bee.

The top spellers from each state will then move on to the Scripps National Spelling Bee set for May 27-30 in National Harbor, Maryland.

Ducept made her way to the winner's circle by spelling the words spectrum, sultan, popularity, alamo and finally carnivore.

Shana Neesvig

SET TO SPELL - Sanders County Spelling Bee participants listen to the bee rules before the competition begins. Seventeen students competed in the 32nd annual county bee, sponsored by First Security Bank and The Sanders County Ledger.

Seventeen Sanders County students competed in the county bee Friday at the Sanders County Courthouse. They included Braxton Dorscher (7th grade), Trinity Riffle (7th) and James Schmidt (7th) of Thompson Falls; Kalem Ercanbrack (5th), Piper Bergstrom (8th), Kassidy O'Keefe (7th) and Ducept (6th) of Plains; Madison Wormwood (5th), Nathan Levey (7th) and Flores (6th) of Trout Creek; Naoma Knudsen (5th), Elijah Campbel (7th) and Keefe (5th) of Hot Springs; and Adele Ranney (5th), Jayna Hale (6th), Katie Porter (5th) and Cahrlie Elverud (6th) from Dixon.

The Sanders County Spelling Bee is sponsored by The Sanders County Ledger and First Security Bank. The bank provides gift certificates for the top three finishers and the Ledger provides trophies. Ducept received a $100 gift certificate, Keefe a $75 gift certificate and Flores received a $50 gift certificate.

Dan Whittenburg of Thompson Falls again served as pronouncer for the event. He said he practiced pronouncing the words at home. When asked if his wife, Peg, would spell out the words in response, Whittenburg laughed.

Judges for the event included Joanne Burk of First Security Bank, Karen Dwyer of Thompson Falls and Sara Czerwinski of the Ledger, who also serves as the county bee director.

The Ledger and First Security Bank have sponsored the county spelling bee for 32 years.