These Valley View Students Are Going To The County Spelling Bee

ROMEOVILLE, IL — Five students from the Valley View School District will advance to the Will County Spelling Bee, according to a news release from the district. The Valley View Middle School Spelling Bee was canceled due to weather, but schools held their own competitions to determine champions for each grade level.

"Mother Nature must have been a poor speller in school because how else to explain why the VVSD Middle School Spelling Bee was rescheduled twice and ultimately cancelled," officials wrote on Facebook. "In order to determine the District’s representatives at the Will County Spelling Bee, our five middle schools held "spell-offs" among their 6th, 7th, and 8th grade champions."

The Will County Spelling Bee is March 7 at Lockport East High School.

Here are the winners who will advance to the countywide competition:

• Maryam Sohail (A. Vito Martinez Middle School, 8th grade)
• Simona McDonald (Hubert Humphrey Middle School, 8th grade)

Addams, Brooks and Lukancic Middle Schools have yet to determine their champions, officials said.

"As an 8th grader, I realized I needed to get out and do more, especially because colleges look at that," McDonald said in a video posted by the district to Facebook. "So, I've decided I'm going to do the spelling bee, I'm going to do theater and I'm going to do choir...to get out there and not live in a little shell."

McDonald, who won in her first-ever spelling bee, said she studied hard over several months in order to pull off her victory.

"If you try hard enough, you can do anything you want," she said.

Image via Shutterstock