Paloma Ronis, a sixth grader at CMS, won the spelling bee by edging out her older sister for the championship.
Coronado Middle School recently held their annual spelling bee. The quest for the title of champion began in humanities classes where the top two students from the class competition advanced to the school wide bee. The stage was filled with sixth, seventh and eighth graders as the event commenced. Slowly, round by round, the number of empty chairs on stage grew greater.
Students competing in the spelling bee were provided with a list containing 150 words to study as part of their preparation. By the time those one hundred and fifty words had been offered at this year’s event, there were only six contestants remaining. Next, two more were out, having misspelled their words.
Georgia Ronis von Helms, the defending champion (she won last year as a seventh grader) stepped to the microphone and correctly spelled “gyrate”. Next, her younger sister, Paloma spelled “diabolical”. With three contestants left, the last young man in the competition received the word “unmitigatable”, ending his run for the top spot.
At long last it was just Georgia and Paloma, sisters, left on stage. Georgia had been here before, handled the pressure and performed well enough to take the top prize. Paloma, as a sixth grader, was the neophyte.
Paloma and Georgia’s mom, Gretchen, kept track of the words they had to spell during the bee.
“Spell exhilarate,” the reader offered to Georgia, the older sister. As the crowdheld their breath and Paloma waited for her turn, Georgia opened the door for her sister as she spelled her word incorrectly. Now it was up to Paloma to spell her word and then a second word to be named the winner. She spelled “congelative”, a word she’d never seen before and stood on the verge of winning. “Spell paralytic,” the reader said. “P-a-r-a-l-y-t-i-c,” chimed Paloma. With the correct spelling of paralytic, she became the spelling bee champion for 2015, as a sixth grader.
What an experience for both sisters and for their mother, Gretchen, who was proudly viewing the competition from the crowd, while keeping track of the words they spelled. It’s a win-win for the family since the champion of the school bee advances to the countywide competition. To compete at the county level, however, a student must at least be a 7th grader. So, Georgia, as runner-up, will still advance to the county bee and Paloma will reign as the CMS champion until next year when she defends her title and the chance to go to the county spelling bee.
Congratulations to all the competitors and to Georgia and Paloma Ronis von Helms, super spelling sisters!
Georgia (8th) and Paloma (6th) Ronis von Helms with Assistant Principal Karin Mellina.
Kellee Hearther
Staff Writer
eCoronado.com
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