2019 spelling champ wins Gazette Scripps Spelling Bee again
Gaston County’s champion speller from 2019, Belmont Middle School s James Dover, returned to the competition Wednesday and won it all over again.
The 2021 Gaston Gazette Scripps Spelling Bee, held at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Gaston Conference Center, featured 27 of the county’s best spellers who currently attend elementary or middle school.
Round six kicked off with just five contestants. Three of them were eliminated during the round, leaving just Haldora Churchill, a sixth grader at Gaston Day School, and Dover, an eighth grader at Belmont Middle.
After Churchill didn t spell “sciatica” correctly in the eighth round, Laurel Morris, retired director of the Gaston County Public Library, asked Dover to spell “posthumous.”