North Lamar eighth-grader, Steele Musgrove, spelled his way to the 55th annual Dallas Morning News Spelling Bee to place fourth in the regional competition. Steele, who attends Stone Middle School, competed on March 23 against others from 38 counties in the state that make up the Dallas Region.
The north and east Texas counties include: Anderson, Bowie, Camp, Cass, Cherokee, Collin, Cooke, Dallas, Delta, Denton, Ellis, Fannin, Franklin, Freestone, Grayson, Gregg, Harrison, Henderson, Hill, Hopkins, Hunt, Kaufman, Lamar, Limestone, Marion, Morris, Navarro, Panola, Rains, Red River, Rockwall, Rusk, Shelby, Smith, Titus, Upshur, Van Zandt and Wood. Each county could send one champion to the Regional Spelling Bee, except Dallas County, which could send two champions — one from the public schools and one from the private schools.
Musgrove spelled “bastide,” “dowager,” “arbitrage,” “garcon,” “commissar,” “Swahili,” “prosaic,” and “canary” correctly before hitting a bump on the word “labefaction” in the 9th round.
Winner of the regional spelling bee was Plano eighth-grader and returning fourth consecutive champion, Chetan Reddy.