Bell fourth grader wins district spelling bee

A beautiful smile spread across the face of Madison Hodge, a fourth grader from Bell Elementary School, as she spelled the winning word ‘vengeance’ in the Gilchrist County Schools District Spelling Bee on November 19th.
The Bell Elementary fourth grader defeated Emilee Miller, a fifth grader from Trenton Middle School, in the seventh round of the Spelling Bee when Miller failed to spell the word ‘fallacy’ correctly.
“It was hard because I was going against eighth graders and under,” Madison said on Monday. “I studied for at least a month … maybe two!”

Madison Hodge, a fourth grade student at Bell Elementary School, won first place in the district spelling bee after spelling the word ‘vengeance’ correctly in the seventh round.

Other students participating in the Spelling Bee were the winners or runners-up in their school bees. Spelling Bee contestants were: Dillon Paulling, a Bell Elementary fifth grader, Adasyn Overstreet, a Trenton Middle School fifth grader, Austin Stephenson, a Trenton Middle School fifth grader, Kylie Johnson, a Trenton Middle School seventh grader, Jarrait Humphries, a Bell Middle School eighth grader, Cody Smith, a Bell Middle School eighth grader, and Kaelyn Scott, Mariah Lampost, Alex Chason and Amber Hockenberry, all students representing Riverside Christian Academy.
The Spelling Bee was held at Trenton Elementary School and judges for the occasion were Juan Henley from Trenton Elementary School, Jill Carhart from Trenton Middle School, and Xina Leggett from Bell Elementary School.
Spelling Bee Coordinator Janet Bradley said that the Spelling Bee location is rotated between the county’s four schools each year and the judges also change from year to year.

Gilchrist County students who participated in the District Spelling Bee are pictured, front row, left to right: Adasyn Overstreet, Dillon Paulling and Madison Hodge. Second Row, left to right: Emilee Miller, Kaelyn Scott, Mariah Lampost and Alex Chason. Back Row, left to right: Jarrait Humphries, Cody Smith, Austin Stephenson, Kylie Johnson and Amber Hockenberry.

Cindy Watson, a fourth grade teacher from Trenton Elementary School, was the pronouncer for the Spelling Bee.
Madison will go on to represent Gilchrist County in the Regional Spelling Bee in Tallahassee on February 13, 2010 at WFSU-TV.
The daughter of Sylvia and Bryan Hodge, Madison is a student in Mrs. Susan Owens’ class. On Tuesday, Madison said that she is excited, but also nervous about competing in the Regional Spelling Bee.
“I’ve been to Tallahassee once before,” Madison said. “I went through it coming back from the beach. We took a wrong turn, but got out of there thankfully.”
One thing is for sure Madison will have all her classmates at Bell Elementary School supporting her as she makes the trip to Tallahassee to compete. After winning the Spelling Bee on Thursday, Madison returned to her classroom with the 1st place trophy in hand, only to find her classmates excited to greet her. In fact, they made a ‘Congratulations’ banner for her, which everyone in the class signed.