Thirty-six students at Walnut Grove Elementary studied a spelling booklet that had 42,000 words, then did their best to correctly spell 109 of them. At the first spelling bee at the school in more than six years, third, fourth and fifth-graders all stepped up to the plate, but fifth-grader Rafael Ramirez (seventh from left in the above photo) was the champion, correctly spelling “fiercest.” Samantha Danis, also a fifth grader, was runner-up.
As champion, “Raffie” Ramirez will compete in a spelling bee next month against other Bay Area schools’ top spellers. The winner of that bee will compete in a national spelling bee in May in Washington, D.C.
–Carol Bogart
Spelling bee participants Jan. 24 at Walnut Grove Elementary:
Rafael Ramirez, Samantha Danis, Jamie Altman, Daniel Arthur, Elise Berendt, Akshay Bommireddi, Arnold Chan, Tiffany Chung, Yassine Elmandjra, Arlene Firoozan, Max Gastineau, Annie Holmquist, Mekhala Hoskote, Martin Hughes, Ryan Ibanez, Justin Jeon, Irene Kim, Leslie Lam, Max Lam, Hanying Mo, John Malchar, Hunter Milano, Zach Mufti, Dhruvika Sahni, Kayla Barber-Scot, Kaelan Song, Suman Tripathy, David Vanderstraeten, Ryan Vicnecio, David Wang, Branden West, Kevin Wiener, Alex Williams, Glynn Williams, Kayla Wong, Peter Xie.
