Howard student wins Bibb spelling bee

The Bibb County School District is sending two students to the regional spelling bee who may both have a good chance to win.

In Saturday's annual county spelling bee, Landon Juang of Howard Middle School emerged on top, but not after a hard-fought battle. The runner-up was Aman Boricha-Masand of the Academy for Classical Education.

After the field of 30 students quickly whittled down to the two finalists, Landon and Aman showed themselves to be a couple of spelling titans.

For nine rounds they correctly spelled tough words that included anemone, eleemosynary, oubliette, force majeure and potpourri.

The first miss among the two didn't come until the ninth round of the final, when Aman misspelled "concatenate."

At that point, a rule change came into play from bees in previous years. Under the prior rules, Landon would have needed to correctly spell the word that was missed, then he would have to correctly spell a new word to get the win.

But this year Landon had to correctly spell two new words, not the one that was missed.

He correctly spelled "Iroquois," and "diatribe" to get the win.

Both Landon and Aman will represent Bibb in the regional spelling bee to be held at Fort Valley State University on Feb. 27. The winner there will go onto the state bee, and the winner there will go to the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Landon and Aman both said they like their chances at the regional bee.

Landon was runner-up in the Bibb County bee last year, so he will be making his second appearance in the region bee. He went out in the third round at region last year and thinks he can do better.

"I was nervous last year," he said. "It was very hard. I feel better this year."

Aman said he only had one day to study because his school held its bee Thursday, so he didn't know he would be in the county bee until then.

"Now that I know the region bee is a month away, I'm going to study my heart out," he said.

Aman credited his mother with making him a good speller.

"She would just give me a dictionary when I was little and tell me to memorize 10 words every day," he said.

Landon also gave credit to his mom, saying she helps him practice.

For the second year, Sheriff David Davis was one of the judges.

"All of these students that worked so hard to get to this point have really put in a lot of hours but the last two were phenomenal," he said. "It was a barn burner going into those rounds."

As the last speller eliminated before the final, Paige Riser of Rutland Middle School finished third.

Landon got a $125 top prize, Aman got $75 and Paige got $25. Masab Temple 11 provided the prize money.

The bee, held at the Central High School auditorium, is put on by the Bibb Association of Educators.

To contact writer Wayne Crenshaw, call 256-9725.

This story was originally published January 16, 2016 at 4:48 PM with the headline "Howard student wins Bibb spelling bee ."