St. Therese duo tops schools’ spelling-bee competition

Dec 02, 2009 News

NEW AMSTERDAM, BERBICE – St. Therese Primary School in New Amsterdam trounced the All Saints Primary and emerged winners of the New Amsterdam Town Week 2009 Spelling-Bee Competition.
In the first place was 11-year old Kessa Kendall of St. Therese who did not miss a beat and spelt each word handed to her correct.

From left: Kessa Kendall, Latanya Downer and Akeasha Bodie

At the end of a spell-off, 11-year-old Latanya Downer also of St. Therese took the second place leaving Akeasha Bodie of All Saints Primary in the third spot.
At the opening of the Town Week scheduled for tomorrow, Miss Kendall would receive a laptop computer, a $15,000 gift certificate and a Cellink Bag while her colleague Miss Downer would be given a $10,000 gift voucher and a Cellink Bag. Both packages were donated by Cellink. Demerara Distilleries Limited would provide a six-month supply of Flutee juice to Miss Bodie.
The competition was held at the New Amsterdam Town Hall yesterday. Three students each of the Grade Six level from St. Therese, All Saints, St. Aloysius and Overwinning Primary Schools along with School of the Nations vied for supremacy.
At the beginning, the contestants were each given 60 seconds to spell a word with as many tries as time permitted. Some of the students wrote the word before verbalizing it, thus using up valuable seconds. At the end of the eighth round the group was down to nine and the time was reduced to 30 seconds.
By the 11th round the final student of School of the Nations was knocked out of the competition leaving the government-owned schools to battle. It was in this very round that the organizers were forced to produce words used in the 2008 spelling bee after using up all those for this year. It was then the real battle began since unlike the first set of words these were not given to contestants to rehearse. The rivals were each given 45 seconds to spell the word.
Champion Kessa Kendall said she was confident of the victory since she was fully prepared for any word tossed her way. Latanya Downer acknowledged she did her school proud while Akeasha Bodie said she had her heart set on the first place.
Coordinator Ian Carter, a retired head teacher, posited he was heartened by the level of competition and as he congratulated the 15 contestants, he said each one is indeed a winner.
The contest was opened to all government owned and private schools in the New Amsterdam catchment area but only the above mention five responded to the invitation.