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Joseph wins regional title

NORTH MANKATO — For the second time in three years, Briana Joseph, a seventh-grader at Fairmont Junior Senior High School, has been named regional spelling bee champion.

The regional bee, held in North Mankato at South Central College on Tuesday night, consisted of 41 students from the southern half of the state.

The bee began with a practice so students could get familiar with the process and become comfortable walking up to and adjusting the microphone. Then the official bee began. Round one claimed Merissa Cartwright of Granada-Huntley-East Chain Schools and Caleb Carlovsky of St. Paul’s Lutheran School.

Round two claimed Annika Wheeler of Fairmont Area Schools, Isabella Hoffmann of Martin County West Junior High and Isaiah Lockwood of St. John Vianney School. The third round saw Aiden Moler of Truman Elementary School go out on “klompen.”

It took seven rounds for the bee to get down to its final four contestants: Joseph, Emily Spieker of Dakota Meadows Middle School (Mankato), Jack Nesnidal of Shakopee Junior High West, and Emily Sullivan of Le-Sueur-Henderson Middle School. These students battled it out for seven rounds until Sullivan misspelled “azimuth.” Nesnidal made it another four rounds before misspelling “lieutenant.”

For the next 27 rounds, it was just Joseph and Spieker battling back and forth, whittling down the list of 500 spelling bee words. The two would take turns at the microphone hearing their word, repeating their word, and then asking the pronouncer for the word’s origins, the part of speech and the word’s definition.

In round 46, a grueling three-and-a-half hours into it, Spieker misspelled “spinosity.” But the rules of the bee state that, once the second place speller has missed a word, the first place speller has to spell one additional word correctly to be considered the victor. A big smile appeared on Joseph’s face as she heard the final word she had to spell in the forty-seventh round: carious. Choosing to stick with her rhythm, she repeated the word and asked for the word’s origins and definition. She again repeated the word, “wrote” the word on her left hand using her right pointer finger and said the word one more time before proceeding to correctly spell it — an adjective meaning decayed in reference to bones or teeth.

Obviously, Spieker was tough competition. She was last year’s runner up also.

“Briana and Emily were such impressive students,” said Mary Hillmann, regional spelling bee coordinator. “Their poise under great pressure and ability to spell challenging words was incredible. I wish we could have had two winners but look forward to Briana’s continued success at the national level.”

Before Tuesday, the most rounds any prior southern Minnesota regional bee had was somewhere around 24 rounds. That was back in 2010 when Joseph’s brother, Tony Joseph, and the second and third place contestants battled it out for 13 rounds. Tony also has three regional bee championships to his name.

In addition to a plaque, a 2017 mint coin set and other prizes, Joseph also received a travel to and accommodations at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., which will be May 28-June 3.

Joseph is the daughter of Abraham and Simmi Joseph.

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