The Spelling Bee was held January 6, 2017 at 1:45 p.m in the cafeteria. People were picked based on whether or not they wanted to participate.  Only the 7th and 8th grade students and teachers were the audience. The people who participated in the 7th grade were Ben Burbrink, Dominic Crago, Grace Campbell, Chase DeDomenic, Bryce Everett, Jake Gross, Roslyn Krahling, Julie Ostrowski, Ethan Roy, and Jasmine Scott.  The 8th grade participants consisted of Garrik Catania who came in second place, and Joshua Demski the winner of 2017 Middle School Spelling Bee. In addition, Michael French, Steven Gaffney, Preston Gibbs, Aaren Landis, Mason McDevitt, Nicholas McGinnis, and Brandon Strickland also represented the 8th grade.

Josh Demski will advance to the next round at YSU on March 11, 2017. He will compete against many others who won in other schools. In addition, if he wins that he will go on to the National Spelling Bee where he will visit another state and compete against thousands of children of all ages. Hopefully he will pull it off and bring home the prize. Even if he doesn’t he should be rewarded and praised for winning our school’s Spelling Bee.

Miss Tortora, who was in charge of the Spelling Bee, stated, “The spelling bee was a huge success; we had a great turnout and students were excited to participate. We even had one student comment he wanted to be ‘the next Ryan Staton’ which created an eager buzz among the spellers. I am looking forward to even more participants in next year’s bee!”