Former spelling bee participant returns as volunteer

COEUR d'ALENE — The North Idaho Spelling Bee has come full circle. Rohnin Randles, who competed in the spelling bee for three years as a kid, is coming back to volunteer for the event.

"It was a lot of fun. I always enjoyed being a part of the competition," Randles said. "It was something my dad did when he was a kid, too, so we had fun doing that together."

Randles is a dual-credit senior at Lakeland High School and will finish his associate's degree in the spring at North Idaho College. As part of the Phi Theta Kappa honor society at NIC, he received an email about volunteering opportunities, including some at the North Idaho Regional Spelling Bee.

"I remember participating and I thought it would be good to go back and participate again," Randles said.

Randles will be volunteering on stage with the judges. He is in charge of checking for correct spellings and notifying competitors if they answered correctly or not.

Mindy Patterson is the coordinator for the North Idaho Regional Spelling Bee. She is in charge of finding volunteers to help with the event.

"I asked our PTK adviser for volunteers and Rohnin was the only one who wanted to help," Patterson said. "We got to talking and I found out he was in the spelling bee as a kid."

The 2016 North Idaho Regional Spelling Bee will be held Saturday at the Boswell Hall Schuler Performing Arts Center on the NIC campus. Registration opens at 8:30 a.m. and the bee will start at 9 a.m.

The bee, open to fourth- through eighth-graders, features one kid per grade from each participating school district in North Idaho. There will be kids from 47 schools in 10 districts across five northern counties. Each contestant has already won the district competition for his or her grade level. At this weekend's regional spelling bee, all contestants will be competing against each other, no matter what grade they are in.

The winner of this bee will win an all-expense paid trip, provided by The Coeur d’Alene Press, to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., in late May.

"My advice is to just slow down, breathe and relax," Randles said. "As long as you keep yourself calm and relaxed, you'll do great."