Academic Challenge Team Shows Great Promise in First Tournament
The 6th grade Academic Challenge team competed in their first ever tournament Thursday evening, Jan 22, 2026 at the Mid-Ohio Education Service Center in Mansfield. Landon Dotellis, Emily Hiller, Grace Shambaugh, Ellis Stoffer, and Rose Wells comprise the Ashland A team. The Ashland B team members are Gabe Cehulik, Stella Farnsworth, Graham Gibson, Karsyn Kaeser, and Keagan Parker.
Thirty one teams from Ashland, Richland, and Wayne counties participated in the tournament and the competition was fierce. All the teams competed in 7 rounds. Each round consisted of 20 Alphabet Round questions (10 per team) and 15 Lightning Round questions. Teams accumulated one point for each correct answer, and the team with the highest point accumulation was the winner.
Ashland A finished in 9th place and Ashland B in 19th place. The top two teams were Wooster and Lexington, who have had a lot of competition experience. The Ashland team learned a lot from the experience and have no doubt that they will be high up on the leaderboard when they compete again in March.
Spelling Bee Buzz
by Ellie Bise, Avary Hinkle, Lydia Weaver
Ashland Middle School 7th grader Melody Dennison won the 2026 Ashland County Spelling Bee held January 29th at the Heartland Technical Education Center. She competed against students from schools across Ashland County. The runner-up in the bee was Carson Donley, a student from C.E. Budd Elementary School in Loudonville. Dennison won in the 15th round with the word “evidence”, but there were several words throughout the tournament that proved very challenging to contestants like, “baccate”, “moraine”, and “oviparous”. Dennison advances to the regional bee for a chance to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C.
AMS also had strong representation from five more students, Emily Hiller (4th place), Rowe Chartier (6th place), Georgia Knowlton (7th place), Audrie Shirley (13th place), and Olive Knowlton (17th place). These students first qualified at our school bee that took place in November. Thirty AMS students from all three grade levels participated in the AMS meet. The winner of the middle school bee was Audrie Shirley and the runner-up was Rowe Chartier. In addition to the 6 students that participated at the county bee, three other AMS students, Cynthia Ables, Breeze Kegley, and Quinn Rafeld also qualified but did not attend.