Even though it was her first time to participate, winning the county spelling bee was no big deal for Auvia Carter. In fact, the fourth-grader at Norris Elementary School said she liked studying for the competition.
"It's fun to learn new words," Auvia said after the bee. "I look at a word, spell it to myself, then my mama calls it out. If I get it wrong, then I do it again and again."
Auvia is the daughter of Giovanni Carter and the granddaughter of Mary Carter.
She was one of 17 students representing the top spellers of 1,646 McDuffie County students in grades 4-8. Approximately 20 family members attended the spelling bee, which was held Thursday morning, Jan. 28, in the Thomson-McDuffie Junior High cafetorium.
"You all have a lot to be proud of already because we know what you went through to get here," TMJHS Assistant-Principal Neal Tam said as he welcomed the students. "You had to compete against and win above 300 students in each grade level. So, this is already a great accomplishment.
The number of competitors was narrowed to two finalists after five rounds of the single-elimination contest -- Auvia and Kayla James, a sixth-grader at Thomson Middle School.
Auvia and Kayla then went through five rounds against each other until Kayla misspelled "absurd" and Auvia correctly spelled "theory" to win.
"We really didn't get to the words that were hard yet," Auvia said.
The local competition followed the same standards and procedures as the national spelling bee. Other contestants were: Walker Tharpe and Cade Brown from Dearing Elementary School, Taylor Herrington, Charles Osborne, Savannah Lewis, Davon Crockett and Catherine Dansie-Stevenson from Norris Elementary School, Micah Cummings, Phillip Williams, Megan Rogers, Cedric Norris and Kevin Csontos from Thomson Middle School, and Pedrinisha Few, Tashaundra Boyd and Delqwon Reeves from Thomson-McDuffie Junior High School.
McDuffie Federal Programs Director Mychele Rhodes said the number of students representing each school was determined by the number of full-time enrolled students in that grade of the school.
Caller Lynn Entrekin told one student who misspelled a word "when you go look that up, you won't ever forget it." Judges for the contest were Khrista Kent, Julie Gerlach and Terrie Gribanow, all teachers in McDuffie County.
Dr. Rhodes, who was Auvia's principal when she was in first grade, was not surprised Auvia won the contest.
"She read more Accelerated Reader books than any first-grader that ever walked through the door at Maxwell Elementary," Dr. Rhodes said.
Auvia and Kayla will be honored at the McDuffie County School Board meeting on Feb. 9. Auvia will go on to represent the county in the district spelling bee March 6 in Augusta.
