4th-grader champion of CES spelling bee

On Dec. 18, 32 fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders at Crestline Elementary joined millions of children across the United States in the first step toward the Scripps National Spelling Bee held in Washington, D.C.  

After becoming their classrooms’ spelling bee champion, these students began preparing for this event. After 2½ hours, the Crestline Spelling Bee ended with a tie for second place and an overall first place winner. Fifth-grader Lib Stapes and sixth-grader Kenneth Robinson share the honor for second place, and Roscoe Bare, a fourth-grader was declared the champion.  

Roscoe is the first fourth-grader who Crestline teachers and administrators can remember winning in recent years.  He was happy to hear the word “ichthyosaurus,” because he had studied and even asked about it at breakfast the morning he spelled it successfully in competition.  

Roscoe went on to compete in the Mountain Brook District Spelling Bee on Jan. 11, where he came in third place, finishing behind a seventh-grader from Mountain Brook Junior High and an eighth-grader from Highlands, yet in front of all the other elementary school competitors.  

– Submitted by Caroline Springfield.