Spelling Bee Champions

The 2023 Santa Cruz County Spelling Bee champions are Bayview Elementary fifth grader Liesl Hildebrand, first place in the Elementary Division and Gateway School seventh grader Sky Zeltser winning the Junior Division.

Finishing second: Ihan Kang, Westlake fifth grader, and Ryan Repp, Aptos Junior High eight grader.

Finishing third: Aria Menon, Mountain Elementary sixth grader, and Cooper Nelson, Aptos Junior High eighth grader.

First and second place finishers in both divisions advance to the California State Spelling Championship, scheduled for Saturday, May 13, at the San Joaquin County Office of Education.

The local contest, sponsored by the Santa Cruz County Office of Education, took place Jan. 28, at UC Santa Cruz.

This year’s competition was the first event held in-person since 2020.

“Congratulations to our winners, and to every student who participated in this exciting academic event!” said Sofia Sorensen, multilingual achievement coordinator at the Santa Cruz COE and event organizer. “We were thrilled to bring the Spelling Bee back in-person this year and to see such talent and love of words from students across Santa Cruz County.”

Liesl missed three words and Sky missed 11 words; the rest of the competitors made more errors.

Competitors first participated in school spelling bees, with winners advancing to the county-level event.

The countywide competition is open to two students from every school in Santa Cruz County, public or private, in grades 4-6 and grades 7-9 who have been certified as school champions by their school coordinator. n