This year was a year of many firsts during the East Baton Rouge Parish School District’s fourth annual Spelling Bee.  More than 100 of the district’s best spellers represented the second through the fifth grades in the two-night event this week.

Buchanan Elementary School once again showed its spelling power during the overall event with a first-place winner, student Navya Murugesan (first photo, left), on the first evening of competition, Monday, November 8, at McKinley Middle Magnet School.  Murugesan won the second-through-third-grade bee that evening by spelling the word “therapeutic” correctly.

Last year, for the second year in a row, a student from Buchanan Elementary School walked away the winner of the second night of competition. 

Other winners at the 2010 second- and third-grade spelling bee Monday night were Ethan Zahid of Parkview Elementary, second place (first photo, right); and Ralyn Ricks of The Dufrocq School, third place (first photo, middle).

That second night of competition between fourth and fifth graders on Tuesday, November 9, went on longer than expected as Jordyn Rushing of Shenandoah Elementary School (second photo, left) and Robert Chumbley of Parkview Elementary (second photo, middle) spelled word after word correctly and continuously for about 20 minutes running.  The drama ended when judges decided to grant a tie, so both students placed first at Tuesday evening’s spelling bee.  Second place went to Hannah Nguyen of Riveroaks Elementary School (second photo, right).