Local students shine at Bi-County Academic contest

Dozens of students from three local schools traveled to Wilbur on March 13 to compete in the Bi-County Academics competition this month. The students from Lind Elementary School, Ritzville Grade School and Lind-Ritzville Middle School returned home with an impressive amount of awards from placing in the academic contest.

The Bi-County Academic contest is an annual event that brings students in third through eighth grades to compete in various academic events. Students competed in six different categories: math, spelling, geography, argument speech, impromptu speech and interpretive speech.

Other schools participating in the competition included Reardan, Wilbur, Liberty, Harrington, Odessa, Creston, Davenport, Lamont and Sprague-Lamont.

For each school, teachers selected two students in the third through eighth grades to compete in spelling and one student in grades five through eight to compete in the math, geology and speeches categories.

In the spelling competition for third grade, Lind student Lance Williamson placed fourth in competition, while Madison Bartlett took fifth for Ritzville. Ritzville students Taylor Galbreath, fourth grade, took second in spelling, and fifth grade Lauren Miller took fifth in the competition.

For Lind/Ritzville middle school, Haley Kulm placed first, while Spencer Gering took second in spelling for the seventh grade. Eighth grade students Bryce Hansen placed second, and Angel Perez placed fourth.

In the argument speech category for fifth grade, Allie Pray of Ritzville took third, while Samantha PeSrez-Gonzalez of Lind took sixth.

Lind/Ritzville students Julia Klein, sixth grade, and Ellie Gering, seventh grade, both placed second, while eighth grade Briana KinKade took third in argument speech.

Success continued in the interpretive speech competition for fifth grade with Lind student Daniella Oliva placing first, while Dakota Killian of Ritzville took second place.

Sixth grade student Jay Harder placed first for Lind/Ritzville in interpretive speech. Also in the middle school competition, Grace Greenwalt placed third for seventh grade, while Sharon Anderson placed second in eighth grade.

Competitors Thomas Rosen, sixth grade, Cole Cameron, Seventh grade, and Lacey Miller, eight grade, all placed second in the impromptu speech competition.

For the fifth grade geography competition, Lind student Alexis Melcher placed first, while Bronc Hutsell of Ritzville took fifth place. Seventh grade Katheran Gingrich placed first in seventh grade, while Cinthia Guizar took second for eighth grade geography.

In the Math category, fifth grade student Amy Anderson took fourth place, while Linnea Schafer, sixth grade, placed second, and Caden Liberty took first for eighth grade.

A large group of students competed in the competition and include: Canyen Whitaker, Wyatt Kulm, Andrew Miller, Faith Draper, Rebaann Dean, Nevaeh Hutson, Ashleigh Swartz, Hayden Stone, Sydney Kinch, Garrett Roettger, Drew Kelly, Elsa Akins, Hayley Rushing, Spencer Gering, and Diamond Spain.