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Havre's 'meticulous' speller wins bee

The 49th Annual Hill County Spelling Bee took place at Havre Middle School Wednesday and HMS eighth-grader, Jack Johnsrud, 14, won the county competition.

Seventy students ranging from fifth to eighth grades in Hill County were signed up to compete. The participating schools were: Box Elder, Cottonwood, Gildford Colony, Havre Middle School, Rocky Boy, Sunnyside, St. Jude Thaddeus, Davey and North Star.

In order to qualify for the competition, the students had to win or place high enough in their school's spelling bee.

The Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee rules were used in the county spelling bee.

After spelling "amarillo" correctly, Johnsrud finalized his win by correctly spelling the championship word, "meticulous."

Johnsrud said he started studying for the county bee after the HMS spelling bee, which was held two weeks ago.

"It feels good," he said. "It was pretty tough. I didn't feel too good about it in the beginning, I felt nervous - but once we got to the end there, I felt pretty good."

Diane McLean, director of the bee and superintendent of Hill County Schools, said Johnsrud did an "awesome job."

"He got a couple of words that were a little bit shaky, a little less familiar, and he did a good job just asking his pronouncer, thinking about it, writing it down ... ," she said.

McLean has been involved with the county spelling bee for four years.

"I thought we had a really good turnout," she said.

Place plaques and Havre Area Chamber of Commerce gift certificates were given to the first-place, second-place and third-place winners.

Johnsrud will compete in the Treasure State Spelling Bee in Billings March 21 at Montana State University-Billings' Petro Hall.

 

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