GREENVILLE –Twelve local students competed in Greenville’s district spelling bee at the Elks Lodge on Tuesday, and after battling through 38 rounds Landin Brown of Greenville Junior High School won first place.

The spelling bee participants were Hayley Maher, Athan Whitney, Chloe Freeman, Caiden Lutz, Alyssa York, Victor Livesay, Ceejay Miltenberger, Landin Brown, Hunter Cuyler, Isabella Gable, Jacob Troutwine and Connor Kerns.

Six Greenville schools competed in the spelling bee, including St. Mary’s, East Intermediate, South Middle School, Greenville Junior High, Montessori Elementary and Montessori Junior High.

Darke County Engineer Jim Surber participated in the spelling bee as key enunciator, while Edwinna Thomas, Vernon Resenbeck and Wendi Gibson judged the event.

The contest started with a quick warm-up round so participants could become accustomed to the process. If a student misspelled a word, the judges rang a small bell to signal their mistake.

Once the spelling bee began, it didn’t take long for the difficulty to ramp up. Within the first two rounds, one third of the contestants were eliminated.

Isabella Gable from Montessori Elementary hung in until the thirteenth round, and ended the spelling bee taking third place.

Then Jacob Troutwine and Landin Brown duked it out for 25 back-and-forth rounds, spelling words such as “emulate”, “empirical”, “statistician”, “fallibility”, “archaic”, “grandiloquence” and “salinity”.

“I studied extensively, and that’s the advice I’d give to anyone,” Jacob said.

In the end, Landin won out when Jacob misspelled “beatitude” and Landin spelled “apotheosis” and “galvanize” correctly.

“I was very excited,” Landin said after claiming first place.

Landin was the youngest student to win the district spelling bee when he was in fourth grade, and Wednesday marked his fourth consecutive win since.

Kitty Zumbrink and Laura Bemus co-organized the event, and Zumbrink noted its continual success.

“I thought they all did a wonderful job,” she said.

The regional spelling bee will take place on Feb.23, 2013.