photo by Brent Maze

Dadeville High School eighth grader Alex Baker (middle) won the Tallapoosa County Spelling Bee Friday, Jan. 28, at the Tallapoosa County Courthouse Auditorium. He is shown with his parents, Scott and Christy Baker.

Baker takes county spelling bee title

By Brent Maze (Contact) | Dadeville Record

Published Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Alex Baker had a hankering to eat some Mexican food Friday.

That’s because he spelled the word “fiesta” to win the Tallapoosa County Spelling Bee Friday morning at the County Courthouse in Dadeville.

“I think we’re going to a Mexican restaurant and have a fiesta,” Baker said.

Baker said the key to his success in the spelling bee was the amount of preparation he did with his parents, Scott and Christy Baker. They would spend hours working together to help Alex learn the words.

“They worked with me every night on the words and they helped me to do my best,” Alex said.

By winning the county spelling bee, Alex will move on to the state spelling bee later this year, where he could earn an opportunity to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington.

Chris Blue, county spelling bee coordinator and Edward Bell teacher, said he is proud of all the kids who made it to the county level.

“All the students spent weeks preparing for this event and it may only last about 15 minutes,” Blue said. “For the last three weeks, my student at Edward Bell has been studying the list of words. It’s very difficult to get to this level.”

The other participants in the bee were runners-up Kaitlin Borden from Councill Middle School, Horseshoe Bend’s Cody Denham, Reeltown’s Eric Dolland and Edward Bell’s Nyreshia Nelson. Radney Elementary’s Megan Maddox qualified to participate in the county bee, but she was unable to attend Friday’s competition.

Cecelia Blue, one of Alex’s teachers at Dadeville High School, said Alex actually faced a tougher time in the school spelling bee than at the county. He and classmate Quentrel Heard went 23 rounds before Alex won the school spelling bee with the word “anticoagulant.”

“He surprised all of us when he spelled that one,” Cecelia Blue said. “I thought he might have picked that word up by reading a book.”

But that wasn’t the case.

“I learned that word playing the video game ‘Halo 3,’” Alex said.

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