DECATUR - The Decatur School District's elementary spelling bee Friday was a hard-fought battle, and many of the contestants likely agreed with Dawn Hunter, who pronounced the words.

"I had to look at my book again to be sure they gave me the elementary list," Hunter said to the spellers before the bee began at Stevenson School.

The words were tough, ranging from "obsequious" to "mantilla" to "mahi mahi" - no, really - and more than one child's face fell when hearing his or her word. Of 32 contestants, 14 fell in the first round.

Danielle Makowicz had to go first in every round but still managed to spell every one of her words correctly to be one of the six finalists to go on to the Macon County bee on Feb. 14 in Shilling Center at Richland Community College.

"I worked on a couple of words every day," she said, and conquered her toughest challenge in Friday's bee - "aristocracy" - by tackling it slowly, a syllable at a time. Danielle is in sixth grade at Garfield Montessori School.

Baum School sixth-grader Christopher Nihiser had to compete in a sudden-death round at the end of the bee, along with four other students, when there were only three spellers left at the end of the regular bee. The district has to send six to the county bee, so the four who misspelled their words in the last round spelled off to qualify to be one of those six.

"I was nervous," Christopher said with a shaky laugh, though he appeared cool and collected onstage.

Besides Danielle and Christopher, the final six includes Malik Pink, Durfee Magnet School; Carlie Wisely and Euler Eiltes, both from French Academy; and Ya'Kima Chism, Harris School. All are sixth-graders.

Superintendent Gloria Davis was held up in a meeting but arrived in time to see most of the bee, and told the children she was proud of all of them, no matter what.

"I want you to be encouraged," she said. "I want you to relax. Whatever you do, you are still terrific. We know you worked hard to even get here."

Valerie Wells can be reached at vwells@ herald-review.com or 421-7982.