McCarter Leads Mustangs
Silver Lake High School competed in the annual ACTIONS Day competition at Central Community College-Hastings on Wednesday, March 27. Silver Lake was one of the twenty-seven schools to participate in the academic meet, with close to 700 students being registered for the event.
At the end of the day, trophies were presented to the top five finishers in each testing category. Dalton McCarter, a junior, won the first place trophy in Agriculture. Senior Julie Jones brought home a fifth-place trophy in Poetry while Tyler Cumpston, a freshman, won fifth place in Spelling.
Students competing in ACTIONS Day from Silver Lake were Nathan Acosta, Tyler Cumpston, Brock Karr, Katelyn Karr, Landon Nabower, Shaylen Beaty, Jenna Strampher, Luke Swanson, Derek Zubrod, Makayla Dinkler, Emmily Freitag, Zane Journey, Dalton McCarter, Abbie Skupa, Lexi Allen, Johnny Borgman, Adrian Crumm, Alex Ehrman, Taran Hanson, Addie Hartman, Julie Jones, Quinn Kilmer, Taylor Nabower and Elizabeth Trausch.

Bartels Heads to Omaha
After a quick morning stop for a breakfast of champions at Dunkin’ Donuts, Sydney Bartels made her way to Omaha for the State Spelling Bee Competition on Saturday, February 2. Sydney was number 43, representing not only herself but Silver Lake and Webster County as well. Sydney competed against 69 other participants. Although she did not go as far as she was hoping, her success at the local level is motivation for other students at Silver Lake to continue improving their spelling. Sydney represented Silver Lake well and we are all very proud of her.

Bartels Takes Home First Place at Webster County Spelling Bee
Apprehensive. That was Sydney Bartels’s mood at the 2019 Webster County spelling bee. It was also the word that she spelled to be deemed the champion speller. She competed against 30 of the best spellers in Webster County at Blue Hill High School on January 23. She wasn’t the only Silver Lake participant who held their own though. Lexi Wengler and Mabel Johnston also made it through the four rounds of written spelling tests to compete in the oral round, making it to the top 10. After some tough rounds of competition, Johnston claimed the fifth place as a fourth grader. Samantha Bonifas, an eighth-grader who has competed in the spelling bee every year since second grade and made it through the oral round three times explains the process and nerves that participants experience: “The oral round is something that involves luck in whether you get an easy word or not, so we were all hoping that Syd would get words she knew. Then it came down to her and another boy. She did a great job of handling the nerves and staying calm while spelling the words which really pulled her to the top.” With her first-place finish, Bartels qualified for the state spelling bee held in Omaha on March 2. Some other participants for Silver Lake were Makenna Karr, Sophie Schmidt, Milla Butler, Sophie Butler, Logan Duester, and Maddie Karr.
- 0
- 1
- 2