Monitor Editor
LAKE BUTLER— A St. Johns County home-schooled eighth grader who represented Union County in the First Coast Spelling Bee won the event and will now compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington this summer.
Soon after Sam Evans and his family moved from the South Florida community of Wellington to St. Johns County, he discovered that his new home had already crowned its spelling champion.
A Jacksonville television station, which is the sponsor of the First Coast Bee said it called other counties in the area that would allow Evans to compete, and Union County welcomed the new North Florida resident.
After 16 rounds of the First Coast event, only four of the original 14 competitors remained: Evans, Cindy Kim of Columbia County, Jeevan George from Alachua County and Rena Reddish, an eighth grader from Keystone Heights Junior High.
Reddish went out in Round 17 with “suppress.” In Round 19, Kim misspelled “governante” and George was incorrect with “tankard.” The two errors opened the door for Evans to win the contest with his correct spelling of “inhabitants.”
Evans has been competing in spelling bees since 2018, placing fifth at a regional competition in 2019 and reaching the finals of online spelling bees in 2020 and 2021.
He is a Scrabble devotee, and participates in basketball, golf, online gaming and trivia contests.
Alexander Murnahan, a sixth-grade student at Bradford Middle School also competed in the First Coast Bee.
