Fourteen students in fourth through sixth grades at Towamensing Elementary School competed recently in the school's third annual Spelling Bee.

The top two winners from each homeroom's bee qualified for the big bee held in the school's auditorium.At the main competition, the children competed in four rounds with the fourth-graders going first, followed by the fifth-graders, then the sixth-graders and a final round for the winners of each grade.Sixth-grader Isabella Mujevic said they were given a packet of words to study, but the final round is made up of words not on the packet. She was last year's winner.Also in the fifth grade, Alysa Roe said she studied the packet, but "whenever I have free time, my mom will look up words on her phone and ask me to spell them."Gianna Vartholomeos said her parents and grandparents all helped her prepare for the bee."I studied the words like every night," she said.With the competition about to start, Roe said she was a little nervous."It's fun to put your spelling skills to the test," she said. But "kind of nervous because you don't know what word is coming next."Some of the hardest words the children hoped they wouldn't be asked were: definitely, interdependence and Roe added with a smile supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. But the one word dreaded the most by the competitors was the word turquoise.In the final round, fourth-grader Karsten Rolappe, fifth-grader Gianna Vartholomeos and sixth-grader Christopher Walkowiak went head-to-head for the best speller crown. When Vartholomeos missed her word, Rolappe and Walkowiak faced off. They went back and forth for 25 rounds before one came out on top. The winner of this year's Towamensing Elementary School Spelling Bee was fourth-grader Karsten Rolappe. His final and winning word was asteroid.As the first-place winner, Rolappe received a trophy, gift card to Barnes and Noble and a certificate. Second- and third-place winners, Walkowiak and Vartholomeos, received a medal, gift card to Barnes and Noble and a certificate. All of the students participating in the big bee received a gift card to Barnes and Noble and a certificate. The certificates varied in amount based on the finish level.Also participating in the spelling bee were: fourth-graders Jacob Denicola, Garrett Balliet and Hannah Barry; fifth-graders Trey Sterling, Hannah Serfass and Alysa Roe; and sixth-graders Isabella Mujevic, Tabitha Pysher, Alex Clee, Kaitlyn Nansteel and Jeremy Mooney.