{"id":36544,"date":"2016-03-17T08:50:43","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T08:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/viconsortium.com\/?p=36544"},"modified":"2016-03-17T08:51:58","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T08:51:58","slug":"john-h-woodsons-makayla-todman-becomes-two-time-territorial-spelling-bee-champ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=36544","title":{"rendered":"John H. Woodson&#8217;s Makayla Todman Becomes Two-Time Territorial Spelling Bee Champ"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\"><span class=\"\">ST. THOMAS &#8212; Makayla Todman, a 7<span style=\"font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 20px;\">th<\/span>\u00a0grader at John H. Woodson Jr. High on St. Croix, who won last year&#8217;s Territorial Spelling Bee championship, repeated her victory with a big win on Wednesday at the Bertha C. Boschulte Middle School Auditorium, Department of Education has said. Her winning word this time around was\u00a0<i class=\"\">villatic<\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The 12-year-old was the last one standing at the end of the eleventh round. Her opponents, Carmindy Pickering, a fifth grader at Pearl B. Larsen Elementary and Jacinda Dubois of St. Patrick\u2019s Catholic School took second and third places, respectively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><span class=\"\">The Territorial Spelling Bee is the longest-running academic competition in the Virgin Islands. This year, it was sponsored by The Virgin Islands Daily News, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company and the Virgin Islands Department of Education. The Daily News has been a sponsor since 1985.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><span class=\"\">\u201cThis Bee is an opportunity to showcase the best and the brightest students in the territory,\u201d said Education Commissioner Sharon Ann McCollum, Ph.D., who observed the competition from the audience with parents, friends and government officials. \u201cThese students worked very, very hard with their coaches and with the close support of their families to earn a place in this competition. This is their big day,\u201d she added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><span class=\"\">In the first phase of competition, elementary, middle and high school students competed among their peers to represent their school in the District Spelling Bee. Next, approximately 22 to 26 students from each district competed in that contest. Then, the top six students from each district competed in the Territorial Spelling Bee. Makayla will travel to Washington, D.C. to represent the Virgin Islands at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, May 22-27, 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><span class=\"\">The funniest moment of the territorial competition came in the third round when V\u2019Andre Rochester, a student at Joseph Sibilly Elementary on St. Thomas, was asked to spell the word<i class=\"\">antibiotic<\/i>. With a brief hesitation, he spelled the word correctly and then in relief blurted, \u201cI\u2019m done!\u201d The audience erupted in laughter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><span class=\"\">The eleven rounds tested the spelling skills of all of the contestants. They were asked to spell words such as <i class=\"\">vernacular, bara, gestalt, insidious, and megalopolis,<\/i> to name a few. Each contestant, when uncertain of a word\u2019s spelling, could ask for its pronunciation, meaning, or origin in an effort to gain a better grasp of how the word is spelled.\u00a0 Ultimately, Makayla proved to be the best speller among her competitors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><span class=\"\">Attendees included Assistant Commissioner Chermaine Hobson-Johnson, St. Thomas-St. John District Superintendent Dionne Wells-Hedrington, and Deputy Superintendent Raquel Berry-Benjamin, along with other Education Department officials. Members of the Senate in attendance were Senators Justin Harrigan, Tregenza Roach and Marvin Blyden.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ST. THOMAS &#8212; Makayla Todman, a 7th\u00a0grader at John H. Woodson Jr. High on St. Croix, who won last year&#8217;s Territorial Spelling Bee championship, repeated her victory with a big win on Wednesday at the Bertha C. Boschulte Middle School Auditorium, Department of Education has said. Her winning word this time around was\u00a0villatic. The 12-year-old [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":36545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[228,1078,11,191,2474,147],"tags":[4749,4747,4748,71],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>John H. Woodson&#039;s Makayla Todman Becomes Two-Time Territorial Spelling Bee Champ - V.I. 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