Kayla Carden is the bees knees

Carden will participate in the Alabama Spelling Bee to be held March 5 in Birmingham.

Kayla Carden sat through two hours and spelled 37 words correctly before being crowned The Madison County Spelling Bee winner.

The eighth-grader at Discovery Middle School’s winning word was “Herpetology,” which is a branch of Zoology concerned with reptiles and amphibians.

This is the straight A student’s first time winning at the county level.

“When I won, I wasn’t really affected by it, “said the humble 14-year-old Carden, “but my parents stormed on stage.”

She said before the competition started, she joked with her father about buying her cookies as consolation prize if she lost.

“I didn’t think I was going to win,” she said.

Carden prepares for spelling contests by repetitiously spelling words until she has them memorized.

“I try to sound it out and usually overshoot a word, thinking that’s it’s spelled a lot more difficult than what it is,” she said. “But, during the county bee, I did it more casually.”

She said the best way to prepare for a spelling bee is by reading and writing.

Her favorite subject is Language Arts, which isn’t surprising because the self-proclaimed “Grammar Nazi” said she wants to be a writer when she grows up.

“I love to see great things happen for great students like her,” said Carden’s Language Arts teacher, Jennifer Dahlke. “The great thing about Kayla is that she doesn’t stress over her academics, it kind of comes natural to her. She’s just a cool, all-round great kid.”

Carden hasn’t started studying for the statewide competition yet, which will be held March 5 in Birmingham, but said she plans to start soon.

Carden leaves one piece of advice for future Spelling Bee competitors.

“Go into it to try to have fun, don’t go there to be meanly competitive,” she said.