Byrne Top Spellers Taste V-i-c-t-o-r-y

The top spellers at Byrne Elementary School were crowned today, and the Southwest Chicago Post was pleased to stop by to take a few photos.

Congratulations to the winners, as well as all who competed.

Intermediate winners (grades 3-5) left to right: Robert Deckinga, principal; fifth grader Milany Villa, first place winner; fourth grader Sebastian Kowalczyk, third place; fourth grader Julianna Schuch, second place; and Teresa Chrobak-Prince, assistant principal. (Milany Villa was invited to participate in the upper class spelling bee because she was the winner of the intermediate spelling bee.)

Upper class winners (grades 6-8) left to right: Robert Deckinga, principal; eighth grader Zuriel Calderon, third place; eighth grader Aidan Cahill, second place; eighth grader Mercedes Loeb, first place; and Teresa Chrobak-Prince, assistant principal. School officials said that Loeb has won first place the last four years out of five. Cahill has won second place the last four years.  Loeb won this year’s spelling bee with the word competitor. She studied 40 minutes a day for two weeks.

Mercedes Loeb

Teacher Robert Gebel, spelling bee coordinator, said that the school is aligned with the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and the next step for Loeb is to participate in a written spelling bee on the district level (which includes 35 school in the Midway Network).  If Loeb succeeds at that level, she will be invited to a citywide oral spelling bee.

Carrie Hobbs, a special education teacher, served as pronouncer in the Byrne Spelling Bee.

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