St. Joseph School 6th grader, Lucas Naber will advance to the Scripps 2011 Regional competition to be held at Timothy Christian School in Elmhurst.

The Downers Grove school held its school-wide Spelling Bee on Tuesday, January 18th with 10 finalists ranging from 4th to 8th grade.

After six rounds in this, his first school-wide Spelling Bee, 6th grader Lucas Naber took the win with the words 'alphanumerical' and 'septuplets'. Runner up for the school is 8th grader, Kayla Lindemann.

Spelling and Geography Bee organizer and 6th grade teacher, Kathie Salek is always excited to see these competitions in action. "These activities encourage students to go outside our curriculum and improve on themselves. They also encourage healthy competition." The Bees bring excitement to the entire school with grades K-8 observing the competitions. "It gives the little ones of the school something to look forward to," Salek added.

After holding individual classroom competitions, the top 10 spellers advanced to the school-wide Spelling Bee. Competitors included Gr 4: Dominic Balsamo and Louis Griffin, Gr 5: Maggie Dunn and Sarah Jaworski, Gr 6: Kileen Dietrich and Lucas Nader, Gr 7: Megan Geraghty and Connor Keegan, and Gr 8: Sean Harnik and Kayla Lindemann.