Greencastle takes second in state Spell Bowl contest

WEST LAFAYETTE -- Picking up where the Greencastle High School Academic Super Bowl team left off last spring when it captured three academic state titles, the GHS Spell Bowl team scored its best-ever finish in the state contest Saturday.

Members of the 2015 Greencastle High School Spell Bowl team are (front, from left) Mattia Seaman, Kelly Hansen, Connor Stimpert and Hillary Johnson, and (back, from left) Jessica Roberts, Taylor Cash, Luke Varvel, Amy Gong, Susanna Howard, Addison Hughes and coach Nicole Kempf Burkhalter.

"We placed second -- the best we've ever done," coach Nicole Kempf Burkhalter told the Banner Graphic.

Greencastle finished second in Class 3 with 60 points, behind only Andrean High School from Gary, which posted a score of 63 in the 2015 Spell Bowl State Finals at Purdue University's Loeb Playhouse on Saturday, Nov. 14.

Cascade and North Posey tied for third place with 59 points.

Making that GHS second-place finish even more impressive was the fact Greencastle did not even have a team last year, so the only GHS speller with high school state competition experience was Kelly Hansen.

And Hansen demonstrated that valuable experience, missing only one word during her nine-word round.

Greencastle's Connor Stimpert, meanwhile, had a perfect score.

Other members of the GHS team competing were Mattia Seaman, Hillary Johnson, Jessica Roberts, Taylor Cash, Luke Varvel, Amy Gong, Susanna Howard and Addison Hughes.

GHS was the only Putnam County team appearing in the state contest, sponsored by the Indiana Association of School Principals.

The competition is made up of 10 rounds with a different team member competing in each round. Each round shall consist of nine words.

Other winning Spell Bowl teams were:

Class 1 -- Penn, 90, followed by Martinsville, 89, and Terre Haute South, 83.

Class 2 -- New Prairie, 85, John Glenn, 78, and Gibson Southern, 72.

Class 4 -- Kouts, 81, East Allen, 78, and Morgan Township 42.