‘Show-off time’: 31 rounds marks district spelling bee record
Milford. The three finalists included last year’s elementary school winner, but just one student could take the crown.
Milford /
| 14 Jan 2025 | 10:10
Delaware Valley Superintendent Brian Blaum, who moderated the bee, tells the audience of parents and students, “They’re just here to have fun. It’s show-off time.” (
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Seventh-grader Wyatt Malenczak won the Delaware Valley Middle School spelling bee. (
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Seventh-grader Maryah Nuhn was the runner-up of the schoolwide bee. (
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By round 20, the field had been winnowed down to three, with Eduardo Arias the last sixth-grader standing. (
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DVMS spelling bee champion Wyatt Malenczak and Principal Dr. Pete Ioppolo. (
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The 16 top spellers at Delaware Valley Middle School took the stage on Mon., Jan. 13 for the Scripps schoolwide spelling bee. Each student had come in in the top two of a homeroom spelling bee. “You guys already won. You won your classroom bee. This is for fun, okay?,” Superintendent Brian Blaum told the visibly nervous competitors. “It’s show-off time.”
It took 20 rounds to winnow the field down to three spellers: seventh-graders Wyatt Malenczak and Maryah Nuhn, and sixth-grader Eduardo Arias, winner of last year’s Delaware Valley Elementary spelling bee. Eventually the moderators departed from the 450-word study list that had been provided to students, something that had not happened before, said Dr. Blaum. The words got slightly easier, but had not been seen beforehand by the students.
Arias got tripped up on “vaunted,” runner-up Nuhn stumbled on “bayou,” and Malenczak nailed “provisions” and “sensitive” to secure the victory. “Thirty-one rounds of spelling bee. We have not seen anything like that before. Excellent, excellent job,” Blaum told the competitors.
Malenczak will move onto an online regional competition, going up against spellers from as far away as Ohio, to compete for a spot in the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. in May.