Spelling bees are to middle schools what peanut butter is to jelly: they just go together.

Enter the third annual Gainesville Middle School contest held last Friday morning.

Seventh grader Sean Lee walked away with the victory at the end of the second and final round by correctly spelling chlorine after pronouncer Laura Channing read the word to him. He had battled through a few tie-breaking rounds against eighth-grader Helen Jung, who finished in second place for the day.

Lee was all smiles afterward as the crowd roared with excitement when he gave his correct answer. The seventh-grader advances to the county-wide spelling bee, which is due to be held at Godwin MS some time in March. Jung will serve as Lee's alternate. Then-eighth grader Laura Townsend represented GMS at the Prince William-wide event in 2009.

Other participants in the Gainesville bee included either graders Evan Rubrecht, Carter Damon, Kateland Rojanvongse, Kaelin Carreiro, Joanna Perdue and Cristina Aragon; seventh graders Nafiz Morshed, Tru Huggins, Allison Turner, Nysea Roman, Miranda Attales, and Rollin Woodford; and sixth graders Samir Abdalmajied, Bhargav Kalakoti, Ashley Clauss, Lindsey Park, Carla Garcia, Robby Owens, Anita Modi, Harry Irvine and Michael Kennedy.

Each of them placed in the top two of their own classroom before competing for the school title. Gainesville MS faculty members Ed Bissell, Chris Creswell and Christine Ware acted as the judges.

"You can tell that a lot of them spend a lot of time preparing for it too," said reading specialist Kathy Michie, who helped coordinate the event with Channing.

Students first began prepping before the Christmas break and wrapped up last week with an "aura of excitement" filling the school, said Michie.