Bernotas 7th Grader Wins Regional Spelling Bee

Submission by District 47/Photo caption: Serena Huberty, seventh grader at Bernotas Middle School, won the Region II Spelling Bee held at Bernotas on February 11. Ved Patel, eighth grader at Cary Junior High, was runner-up.

Bernotas Middle School recently held two of the area’s annual Regional Spelling Bees.

After 22 rounds, Bernotas seventh-grader Serena Huberty took first place in the Region II Bee. Cary Junior High eighth-grader Ved Patel was runner-up.

According to Huberty, the words she found most challenging during the event were ingenious and incredulous. The word that finally gave Patel trouble was triumvirate. Other challenging words in the final rounds included percolate, sashimi, idiosyncratic, guttural, anemone and xenophobic.

The winner of the Region IV Spelling Bee was Anna Webber from Alden-Hebron Middle School and runner-up was Justin Chase from Mary Endres Elementary School.

Both Spelling Bees were organized and implemented by a team of Bernotas teachers. Belinda Strebel, language arts/social studies teacher, was the Region II rounds organizer; extended curriculum language arts/social studies teacher Jean Bowman was the pronouncer; and judges were cross-categorical teacher Alex Mayers, science teacher Cindy Staroske and math teacher Colleen Edwards. Bernotas principal Jeff Prickett was the emcee. For the Region IV Bee, Bernotas assistant principal Kellie Marks was the rounds organizer; speech language pathologist Katie Johnson was the pronouncer; and judges were science teacher Dan Wise, math teacher Beth Weber and language arts/social studies teacher Scott Dalzell. Bernotas assistant principal Scott Meyer was the emcee.

Both Anna Webber and Serena Huberty, also the runner-up of Bernotas’ recent Geography Bee, will now advance to represent their schools and districts at the McHenry County Spelling Bee, which will be held at McHenry County College on March 2nd at 7 p.m.