Draper Spelling Bee champ off to regional contest

joellen.gardner | January 11, 2019

Nearly two dozen Draper Middle School students competed today for a spot at next month’s Capital Region Spelling Bee, but it was eighth-grader Connor Candee who emerged the winner with the correct spelling of the word transcendental after several rounds of tough competition. Connor’s closest challenger was sixth-grader Rachel Miller who went toe-to-toe with Connor during a lengthy battle that took the pair around the world with words like:

aphorism
balustrades
unguents
proboscis
Leipzig
lobelia
jacquerie
tergiversation
auf Wiedersehen
galette
flambeau

All of the words above were spelled correctly by the two Draper finalists. Competing in the 2019 Draper Spelling Bee were the following students, who won their classroom-level contests:

Connor Candee – 1st place
Rachel Miller – Runner-up
Giovanni D’Auge
Danicka Martin
Lily Zinnershine
Carson Dalrymple
Chloe O’Connor
Nick Gestring
Marissa Buonome
Noah Saunders
Abigail Hanna
Travis Walters
David “Jesse” Mathis
Lucy Horaczek
Zoe Miller
Claudia Hetzer
Sarah LeClerc
Ella Scorzafava
Samuel DiLallo
Xavier Cade
Dylan Vandenburg
Mattew Kriss
Amber Caruso
Jaykob Hill
Alexis Thayer
Delwone Howard
Robert Maitino
Alex Bynoe
Savanah Montanaro
Aidan Sommer
Nadine Markle

View photos from the 2019 Draper Middle School Spelling Bee on the district’s Facebook page.

Connor now advances to the regional Bee, which will take place this year on February 13 at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady. The regional bee is held annually and determines which students from the Capital Region will travel to the nation’s capital to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Best of luck to Connor and congratulations to all of our top spellers at Draper!