A change in administrators at the regional level made it unnecessary for there to be a Wood County spelling bee this year.

Aaron Bailey, who has organized the local bee for a number of years, said the new administrators wanted to streamline the competition across the participating school districts and counties.

“This was the first year we haven’t had it,” he said.

There has been a county bee for at least 20 years.

In past years, every local school district would send winners representing grades five-eight to the county bee. The top six would then move on to the regional bee.

The new system had every qualifying school sending their champion to compete at the regional level, Bailey said.

“It kind of made the need for a county bee unnecessary,” he said.

Heather Pacheco, events marketing manager for the Blade, which sponsors the regional bee, said all counties were given the option to hold their regular county bee and send one winner to move on or each school who paid a registration fee to Scripps was allowed to send its school champion to move on.

It gave each school an opportunity to send a spelling bee winner to the regional bee, Pacheco said.

Once he heard the bee was going to be restructured, he sent that information to the participating schools, Bailey said.

“We did briefly discuss carrying it on at the Wood County Educational Service Center for tradition’s sake; however, we agreed that with the Blade regional bee allowing students from every school in the area the chance to compete, it was a good time to start fresh,” he said.

Bailey added he was not aware of any local students who competed regionally.

The local bee has been held in February with the regional competition held in March at Owens Community College.

The winner of this year’s regional bee, which was held on March 19, was from Crestview Middle School in Van Wert.

As for the future of the county bee, “at this point, I don’t anticipate it being back,” Bailey said.