NEVC student is top speller

Thursday, March 22, 2007
Northeast Vernon County 12-year-old student Nona Salsbury receives the first place trophy at a regional spelling bee in Joplin recently.

By Steve Moyer

Nevada Daily Mail

Hard work and practice, practice, practice paid off for a Northeast Vernon County student, Nona Salsbury, Wednesday, March 14, at Missouri Southern State University's Taylor Auditorium, home to the Joplin Globe's 30th annual spelling bee.

Salsbury parleyed that effort into a first-place finish at the event.

NEVC principal Kendall Ogburn said that Salsbury's parents could be seen daily before school going over word lists with her.

"We're talking hours and hours of preparation," Ogburn said. "I felt confident sending her down there. Before school you could see her mom and dad and every morning they would be going over words with her."

Ogburn said that this wasn't the first time that the 12-year-old had gone to the event, or even the first time she had achieved placing in it.

"The good thing for Nona is that it was her third trip," Ogburn said. "Last year she placed second."

The event is more exciting than people might believe on first thought.

"People might think a spelling bee is boring but when you get down to Joplin there are the bright lights and the people are really paying attention to what the students are doing," Ogburn said. "They have programs with the words in it and the people follow along and spell the word with the students."

The spelling bee is for students in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. The individual schools hold bees and one winner from each grade is chosen and go against one another for overall first place and that student is the one that goes to Joplin.

To prepare students are given a list of words to memorize.

"They send the kids a packet with lists in it," Ogburn said. "There are three lists; hard, harder and hardest. There are 2,500 words that they use in the contest."

During the contest most of the students make it to the second round but that round usually eliminates at least half of the remaining contestants Ogburn said.

"Usually 70 to 80 percent stay in after the first round," Ogburn said. "In the harder round they lose about half. On the hardest list they go until the final three are left. This year only two students spelled their word correctly the first time around so they were the only ones in the final."

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