As soon as sixth grader Myra Gurney heard the word “fiberglass,” she realized she was going to win the spelling bee. 

“I knew the second the word came out of her mouth,” Gurney said. 

The middle school hosted its annual spelling bee Friday with 15 students competing, or five students representing each grade. 

This was not Gurney’s first spelling bee. She competed in three others while in elementary school, but was able to secure her first win this year. 

When practicing, Gurney relied on both family and friends to help make sure she was prepared. 

“I asked all of them,” she said.

The competitors dwindled Friday over the coming rounds until Gurney and fellow sixth grader Canela Chacon were the last two standing.  

Chacon was in the first spelling bee of her life. Despite it being an intimidating event, she was able to perform well. 

“It felt scary,” Chacon said. 

Chacon was able to keep poise during the event thanks to lots of practice with her mom, she said. 

“I asked my mom to help me spell everything out loud,” Chacon said. 

Despite the nerves, the two sixth graders were able to each survive eight rounds filled with words such as “guttural” and “archipelago.”  Gurney emerged victorious at the start of round nine. She will represent EMS at the county spelling bee. 

Each shared what they thought were the hardest words in the bee.

“Probably whittled,” Gurney said.

“Dirge,” Chacon said.

The elementary school also recently hosted its own bee.

When fifth-grader Chazley Thomas won, she felt a familiar feeling of accomplishment. This was her second time in the spotlight, having also won when she was in third grade.

“I felt really happy, and I just really felt like I did it again,” Thomas said. “My parents already thought that I would, because, like, I’ve always loved spelling and reading and just things like that.”

Thomas said her win this year felt more rewarding because the spelling bee has become more important to her.

“In third grade, like, the spelling bee wasn’t very much to me,” Thomas said. “As I’ve become more of my own person, I’ve just realized more who I am and, like, how to handle these things.”

Thomas had to win her class’s spelling bee before advancing to the schoolwide competition. She didn’t win in fourth grade, so she said she was extra nervous for the class competition. Once she won that, she said a lot of her nerves dissipated. 

To prepare for the spelling bee, Thomas practiced every day. She has a special app that she uses with different words that are fair game for the competition. In the weeks leading up to the competition, she said she practiced for 15 minutes a night. In the final days, she said all she did with her free time was practice.

“It makes things a lot easier but sometimes a little bit harder because, like, I can delete what I’m typing, but in the real spelling bee, I can’t take back what I say,” Thomas said. “I usually try to have a certain routine of, like, saying it out loud and then having to type exactly what I said.”

Her practice paid off, because she immediately knew the word “garbled” that she ended up winning on.

“I was just thinking, like, ‘Oh, I got this,’” Thomas said. “I remember like, ‘Okay, I know how to spell this. I’ve seen it before. Just don’t rush, just do it slow.’”

Thomas will also go on to compete in the Douglas County spelling bee with the winners from the other schools. Silas Waisner and Kaydence Ward were the runners-up. 

The Douglas County Spelling Bee is at 9:30 a.m. Feb.14 at Billy Mills Elementary School.  

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