Fifth grader Chazley Thomas and sixth grader Myra Gurney both finished in the top 10 Saturday at the Douglas County Spelling Bee.

Both won their school spelling bees last month and advanced to the countywide competition. 

They made it through two rounds before falling short in the third. By that time, 15 of the 25 participants had already been eliminated.

This was Thomas’s second time at the county spelling bee, and she said it was the farthest she’s ever gotten.

“Getting here just makes me happy,” Thomas said. “I’m proud of myself.”

Gurney said she had a good time at the spelling bee and would definitely do it again.

“All the studying, and being able to be with other students my age, was a great experience,” Gurney said.

Thomas and Gurney prepared for the bee by practicing words with their family and using spelling apps. However, Thomas faced a setback Saturday morning when she said she learned about a new list of words that she hadn’t been studying.

“I had no idea there was a separate list,” Thomas said. 

Gurney also said she was scared because she didn’t know what to expect.

“I didn’t know what was going to come at me with a mix of levels of words,” Gurney said.

Her mom Jessica Gurney said she is proud of her daughter.

“She practiced really hard, and she had some tough words and powered through,” Jessica Gurney said.

Gurney said she thought she had her last word but then realized she didn’t.

Thomas said she had never heard the word she lost on. Her father, Jeremy Thomas, said he hadn’t heard of it either. The Scripps National Spelling Bee has not released all the words used in competitions, so we cannot publish them here.

“It’s just a tough one,” Jeremy Thomas said. “She did so good. I’m so proud of her.”

Even though she didn’t win, Chazley Thomas doesn’t feel bad about how she was eliminated.

“The more we got through, like, the more I was just like, ‘OK, these words are getting really hard,’” Thomas said. “It’s not like I got out on, like, a really easy word or anything.”

Jeremy Thomas is the middle school principal, and he said he enjoyed watching Gurney, too.

“They represented Eudora schools very well,” he said.

Other classmates and teachers, like Jennifer Decker, came to support the students. Both Thomas and Gurney said they want to continue participating in the school spelling bees. Thomas will be in middle school next year.

“I feel like the school one is probably more, like, impactful on me than the Douglas County one,” Thomas said. 

Southwest Middle School student Maci Perrins won the spelling bee. This is the fourth year in a row she has won.

Reach Bella Waters at [email protected].