By Krista Hayes
Staff Writer
WAPAKONETA — After 38 rounds of putting the right consonants with vowels, seventh-grade New Bremen student Marissa Frazee was crowned champion of the 2010 Auglaize County Spelling Bee Monday as she correctly spelled the word “mohair.”

“It feels great to be crowned the champion and I’m very excited,” Frazee said smiling and holding her trophy. “I’ll probably put this up on my mantle as soon as I get home.”
In preparing for the competition, the daughter of Connie and Stan Frazee said she practiced her list consisting of more than 200 words half-an-hour each day with her parents. Those efforts went on to allow Frazee to advance to compete in the regional level of the spelling bee competition scheduled to be held at 10 a.m. March 20 at OSU Lima.
“I’ve been to the regional contest before back when I was in fifth grade, but I was eliminated in the second or third round,” Frazee said. “I just hope I’m not as nervous and advance even farther this time around.”
Held at the Auglaize County Education Service Center, approximately 11 Auglaize County students participated in the event, with one student, sixth-grade Waynesfield-Goshen student Alex Andrews, unable to attend.
Serving as judges for the competition were T.J. Winkler of Waynesfield-Goshen Schools, Leanne Keller of Minster Schools, Karen Smith of New Bremen Schools with round keeper Linda Tebbe of New Knoxville Schools.
After nearly two hours, Auglaize County Education Service Center Curriculum Director Virginia McClain requested two new lists of words, using one of the lists from last year’s contest.
“You all have definitely studied your words for today,” McClain said addressing the students half way through the competition after retrieving the new list.
“This has never happened before, but we have quite the competition going on here. You guys are really giving me my run for the money.”
The remaining students were then eliminated one-by-one until only Frazee, sixth-grade Minster student Maddie Schmidt and fifth-grade Minster student Ben Stubbs were left standing. In the end, Schmidt was awarded a trophy for first-runner up, with Stubbs also receiving a trophy for second-runner up.
“It’s feels good to get first-runner up but I was really nervous up there, especially when it got down to only Marissa and me and we kept going back and forth for what seemed like forever,” the daughter of Chris and Mark Schmidt said.
“I’ll probably put my trophy in my room and I want to thank all of my family for helping me study.”
Helping Stubbs to prepare for the spelling bee were his parents, Jill and Jim Stubbs, who he said ran into a little trouble pronouncing the words on the list.
“I mainly studied with my mom, and half the time she couldn’t pronounce the words so we had to get on Dictionary.com for them to pronounce them for me just so I could study,” Stubbs said with a laugh holding the trophy he planned to place in his room to show off to everyone.
“I probably studied between 20 to 30 minutes every day throughout the week, although I was really nervous. I just kept closing my eyes, trying to tell myself to think of happy times.”
Those students who did not receive trophies during the ceremony were awarded medallions by Auglaize County Education Service Center Superintendent James Herrholtz during the presentation of awards portion of the event.
Those students who received medallions were sixth-grade Minster student Nate Bostic, fourth-grade New Bremen student Julia Goettemoeller, seventh-grade New Bremen student Rose Wilson, sixth-grade New Knoxville student Hunter Myers, eighth-grade New Knoxville students Rebecca Newton and Caleb Yeatts, seventh-grade Waynesfield-Goshen student Brandon Bly and eighth-grade Waynesfield-Goshen student Autumn Darnell.