Gibson Will Advance to State Spelling Bee after Winning at the County Level

Twenty-eight students in grades 5-8 from across Blaine County gathered in Chinook High School's Lloyd D. Sweet Auditorium on Wednesday, February 5 for the Blaine County Spelling Bee. After a rousing spell down, Eighth Grader Cynnloch Gibson from Chinook emerged as Grand Champion and Hannah Van Voast, an eighth grader from Turner Public School, earned status as Reserve Champion. Gibson will advance to the State Bee in Bozeman on March 22.

Following welcoming remarks from Blaine County Superintendent of Schools, Kendall Harwood, the bee was underway. Only twelve contestants spelled their words correctly in the first round. During the second round, ten more misspelled. That left six contestants alive in Round Three: Jaxton Brady (Harlem), Gabrielle Doney (Harlem), Hannah Van Voast (Turner), Chayton Main (Harlem) McKearen Stiffarm (Harlem), and Cynnloch Gibson (Chinook). Gibson was the only one to correctly spell his word, millionaire.

To verify his ability, Gibson had a one word round, spelling anthropology correctly, identifying him as the champion speller. According to Mari Anne Skoyen

Blaine County Superintendent of Schools Deputy, this was Gibson's fourth spelling bee. "He was the champion in 2022, placed second in 2023, and was in a four-way tie for third place in 2024, and now he is champion again! What an accomplishment!"

After Gibson was declared champion, a spell-off for second place ensued between Brady, Doney, Main, Stiffarm, and Van Voast. The five contestants battled until only two remained in Round Ten: Brady and Van Voast. Both correctly spelled their words elephant and wavelength.

In Round 11, the pair misspelled their words; Brady missed prompted, and Van Voast missed infomercial.

Round 12 saw Brady correctly spell sledgehammer and Van Voast spell magpies, which led to Round 13 where Brady misspelled vicious and Van Voast correctly spelled trudged, marking her as the Reserve Champion.

About her placing, Van Voast stated: "I felt good about my win because I had a fun time."

The 2025 Montana State Spelling Bee will be held at Montana State University's Strand Union Building on March 22 at 1:00 p.m. The event will be recorded, and video coverage will air on MTN-affiliate news stations across Montana.

"I wish they would live stream the competition," Skoyen stated. "They tried that several years ago and had a lot of technical issues. Unfortunately, Blaine County only gets to have one contestant at the State Bee. Hannah will be the alternate in case Cynnloch can't make it. We told her to keep that date open just in case!"