BONNIE BOUNDS State spelling champion Bonnie Bounds, a junior at Briarwood Academy, won the Georgia Independent Schools Association (GISA) AA championship in Spelling last week for the second consecutive year at Valdosta State University in Valdosta. She also captured fourth place in Argumentative Essay at the state literary meet.

Bonnie's 95 out of 100 on the spelling test was 19 points above the second place finisher, who scored a 76. She correctly spelled words such as shillelagh, a Celtic weapon.

"Competing at literary is always fun and winning the Spelling championship for the second year made this year really special for me," Bonnie said.

She is the daughter of Lincoln and Cindy Bounds and the granddaughter of Hazel Russell, all of Washington.

At Region 1AA literary competition, Bonnie captured first place in both events - Spelling and Argumentative Essay - to help lead her team to a first place finish overall at Augusta State University in Augusta.

Briarwood students qualified to compete in nine of the 13 literary categories at state AA competition. First and second place finishers in the region meet qualify for state competition.

Bonnie successfully retained her Region 1AA title last week by spelling words such as knickknackatory, hartebeests, abscissa, and bordereau correctly. Bonnie spelled 94 of 100 words correctly.

In region competition, Argumentative Essay competitors had six topics from which to select. Bonnie chose to write on "regulations the state legislature could pass to protect legitimate government use of eminent domain while banning improper private use. She had two hours in which to write her winning essay.