Haines and Skagway spellers advance to the Alaska State Spelling Bee competition

Haines and Skagway spellers are advancing to the state spelling bee competition in March. KHNS’ Corinne Smith reports.

Skagway seventh grader Arthur Aribam won the Skagway Spelling Bee earlier this month, and will be advancing to the state championship.

His winning word was ‘Arapahoe,’  referring to the Native people historically from the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. 

Middle School English teacher Aaron Schmidt organizes Skagway’s annual spelling contest. He says it was close. 

“It was kind of a heavyweight bout there. And toward the end. They went 14 rounds, counting Arthur’s championship round. So that’s pretty good competition,” Schmidt said.

The runner up was seventh grader Annabelle Eskins.

“​​Arthur spelled it ‘Arapahoe.’ And that’s a correct variant of Arapaho with no E at the end,” he said.

Thirty two Skagway students participated in the spelling bee this year, from grades second through eighth. Schmidt said it was impressive to see students study the past several months and learn those difficult words. 

“We had one third grader named Summer Munson who went all the way into the sixth round, which is super impressive,” Schmidt said. “And she (was) you know, surrounded by older students and had a princess dress on and just smiling from ear to ear. It was pretty neat to see. Summer crushed it.”

This will be Aribam’s first state spelling bee competition. He’ll be cheered on by the Skagway School community, which Schmidt says is proud of its spellers.

“I always see that there’s a pretty good crowd that attends parents and even older students, some high school teachers will bring their classes into watch. And so there’s always a pretty good turnout. And people get excited about it, which I just think is neat…And I think it takes a lot of guts. I’m always really proud of those spellers. It’s hard to get up and spell in front of people to do anything in front of people, right. But to really publicly demonstrate a skill, like that takes courage.”

Joining Aribam at the state championship will be Haines eighth grader Nate White, who won the Haines Spelling Bee this week.

“He won with the word ‘quasimoto,”  Haines Principal Lilly Boron said. “It was actually very exciting because the championship round went for two rounds, which is not typical.”

Eighth grader Maddie Hart won second place, and third grader Yarona Jacobsen and fourth grader Meg Davis tied for third.

Boron says this year, they organized classroom spelling bees for grades three through eight, and the winners of each class went on to compete in the school-wide spelling bee. And families were able to visit the school and be in the audience.

“Another exciting thing was just to see the parents be able to watch their students in the school,” Boron said. “So we’re kind of getting to that point where parents can come and participate and watch and celebrate their student achievements as we head into spring. So that’s pretty exciting.”

The Alaska State Spelling Bee is slated for March 23. It’ll be held virtually this year so there will be no need for upper Lynn Canal students to travel.