Beaming Carpenter Hill Elementary School fifth-grader Anna Pulis won the individual title in this year’s inaugural Saturn V Spelling Bee in a competition staged at her campus in conjunction with Pfluger Elementary School. Students in the STEM program at both campuses competed for the right to meet at the evening competition. (Photo by Jim Cullen)
by JIM CULLEN
It just doesn’t get any better than this for local Americana.
Carpenter Hill Elementary School fifth-grader Anna Pulis and fellow fifth-grader Izaiah Tilton tenaciously sparred with one another as the last contestants standing in the first-ever Saturn V Spelling Bee. Ally Blazi, another Carpenter Hill fifth grader, had gone down on the word “physiological,” leaving Anna and Izaiah to face-off for the title. Swapped misses extended the drama for several words, but Anna’s successful spell of “buoyancy” and the winner, “neurotransmitter,” broke the tense moments for the win.
It was the exiting culmination of an exercise that initially included all of the fourth and fifth-grade STEM students at Pfluger Elementary and Carpenter Hill Elementary. Two rounds of campus competition eventually produced the 47 winning qualifiers from both schools who faced off on the Colts’ campus stage.
A packed house of families and supporters were on hand for the evening competition at Carpenter Hill and the attention (and necessarily-enforced quiet) was intense. That’s not to suggest excitement wasn’t in the air. It was, but it was an excitement that could only exhibit itself when everyone in the room exhaled a sigh of relief from holding in their natural reactions and joined in a collective burst of applause for all of the contestants.
The competing STEM qualifiers were from Pfluger Elementary classes taught by Krista Milan, Kimberley Crow, Christine Coats and Katie Campbell, and Carpenter Hill Elementary classes taught by Tavia Hrabovsky, Andi Bosar, Lori Shultz and Michelle Anderson. STEM instructor Dr. Ellen Lyon coordinated the new event.
As an enhancement to the individual competition, bee organizers mixed the Colts and the visiting Falcons, then divided the full group into two teams that would compete using awarded points for correctly spelling increasingly difficult words. That competition was won by the “Team 100” students with a 138-point total over the “Team 200” students with 109 points.
All in all, it was a fun-filled evening, the competition the focus of the event, but the camaraderie and unanimous support of students a clearly unifying theme.
A complete listing of qualifying campus winners from Pfluger included Celestine Medellin, Sandra Torres, Gary Alonzo, Chris Trevino, Madison Alexander, Adriel Castro, Nomar Rivera, Giovanni Gomez, Dana John, Estefani Hernandez, Kristina Elkins, Hannah Luna, Ethan Deutsch, Nic Bergstrom, IsaacTorres, Abraham Solis and Nick Aguero.
Qualifying Carpenter Hill winners included champion Anna Pulis, runner-up Izsaiah Tilton, Gabriella Ortegon, Claire Coburn, Dillon Baker, Madelyn Nauschuetz, Emma Cook, Garrett Moore, Dean Gallagher, Amanda Mae Ashley, Ally Blazi, Katherine Gibson, Zach McManus, Luke Roehrig, Georgia Cardosa, Katie Horton, Chandler Lester and Callum Sparrow.
Other qualifying Colt winners included Diego Delafuente, Evan Dunnett, Matthew Hyde, Gabby Segovia, Julia Pierce, Levi Barksdale, Evan Vollbrecht, Blake Fall, Ava Flanigan, Sarah Moore and Jaqueline Kukol.
