By JOYANNA LOVE/ Senior Staff Writer

It was a long journey to victory for fourth-grade student John Perault, as he worked to out spell 49 other students at Clanton Intermediate School on Jan. 25.

The competition was close in many rounds, and the bee lasted more than an hour.

Perault said it felt “awesome” to win.

In the end, he correctly spelled subterranean to win the trophy.

Perault said he studied at home after school in order to prepare for the event. He said he will continue to study this way for the Feb. 2 county-wide bee.

Runner-up Angeleah Tilley, a fourth-grade student, will also continue to study, just in case Perault is unable to compete for some reason.

Tilley was excited to place second and receive a trophy. She said it was the first trophy she had ever won. She said her father encouraged her to “study hard” in preparation.

“I’m glad that I did because it turned out to be good,” Tilley said.

With each new round, the difficulty level increased. Some words that proved to be the last for a participant included: cheddar, intersect, bulletin, grandiose, commendable, hoarsely, annoyance, dexterity, sinewy and conspiracy.

Judges rang a small bell to notify a student that the word had been misspelled.

Once the bee was down to two spellers, Perault and Tilley both correctly spelled their next few words before Tilley misspelled a word.

Each of the participants had scored an 80 on a written spelling test in order to qualify for the spelling bee.