Anja Beth Swoape, age 12 from Valley View Middle School (Edina) emerged as the top speller at the 2009 Seven County Metro Regional Spelling Bee sponsored by Lockridge Grindal Nauen P.L.L.P. on Saturday, March 14, 2009 at the Minnesota History Center. The firm will be sending Anja and a parent to Washington, D.C. in May for the National Spelling Bee.
Forty-three students from across the Metro area competed, up from 28 speller’s last year. Each of the spellers had been selected by his or her school to represent their school in the Regional Bee, and they worked their way through 18 rounds of increasingly difficult words to find the best spellers of the year. The winning word was “gastralgia”: an ache localized in the stomach or abdominal region.
Second place was awarded to Laura Garbe, age 13, from Eagle Ridge Junior High (Savage) and James Wang, age 11, from Oak Point Intermediate School (Eden Prairie) took third.
Chris Sandberg, the firm's partner who headed the team organizing the Regional Bee, said, “It was exciting having a much larger group of students competing this year. The competition was at very high level, and the spellers all represented their schools admirably. We’re very proud that Anja will be representing the Metro area at the National Bee.”
2009 Regional Spelling Bee sponsored by LGN
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