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After the tense showdowns between the 18 expert spellers at Saturday’s inaugural edition of The Chronicle-Journal CanWest CanSpell Regional Spelling Bee, organizers are already excited about next year’s event.
“The bee was a spectacular success. It exceeded all of our expectations,” said Colin Bruce, publisher and general manager of The Chronicle-Journal, which sponsored the event. “It had drama, it had excitement, it had fun — it had everything a great bee should have.”
At Saturday’s event, the theatre of the Bora Laskin Building at Lakehead University was filled with the young spellers’ supportive families and friends who made sure to cheer on their favourites every chance they got.
And while 11-year-old Logan Turner from Agnew H. Johnston Public School may have taken the top prize — which included a $5.000 RESP, new laptop, and trips to Ottawa and Washington D.C. to compete in further bees — it was all about promoting literacy and celebrating each contestant’s accomplishments.
“We try to make kids understand that it’s nice to win, but they’ve done an incredible job just to get this far,” CanWest CanSpell representative Collene Ferguson said Saturday.
For Bruce, it was only natural that The Chronicle-Journal get involved in an endeavour such as this one.
“Newspapers are dedicated to literacy. Anything a newspaper can do to celebrate literacy is obviously something we need to do. We’re just thrilled by it,” he said.
But there is always room for improvement. According to Bruce, organizers would like to see a larger number of schools participate in next year’s bee. Ten schools from the region participated this time around.
“We’d also like to see a larger segment of Northwestern Ontario represented,” he said, adding that they were very excited that some of the spellers came from as far away as Pickle Lake, approximately 530 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.
Bruce said Sunday that this year’s event was “the first step” in planning for next year.
“A lot of schools needed to see it happen once before committing to it,” he said, adding that all the positive feedback organizers have received from teachers and families should help spread the word.
“This is going to be a very popular event next year. We’re going to do everything as well as we did this year and I think we’ll have an even larger success on our hands.”
