Bellefontaine 7th-grader Alex Taylor correctly spelled "reign" to win the 2013 County Spelling Bee at Indian Lake Middle School Tuesday night.
Logan Phillips, a 7th-grader from Benjamin Logan Middle School, took home the second-place award.
Eight students from the four local middle schools drew numbers to determine the order of spelling. Only 50 words were used to finish the 12-round competition.
Taylor and Phillips (pictured left to right) went head-to-head until Logan misspelled "evaluate".
The traveling trophy will be displayed at Bellefontaine Middle School for the next year.
The participants included Kimmie Elliott and Alex Taylor from Bellefontaine, Logan Phillips and Taylor Keene from Benjamin Logan, Terrin Bok and Seth Shields from Indian Lake, and Sam Fleming and Joe Renteria from Riverside.
The Logan County Educational Service Center hosts the county bee each winter.
The four first-place winners (Elliott, Phillips, Bok, and Fleming) will participate in the semifinal round, which is a 50-word online test. Test results will be posted on February 6th at http://www.spellingbee.com/ The highest scoring school champions will qualify for the Scripps College of Communication Regional Spelling Bee on March 16th. The champion of that contest will represent the area at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington.
