Fifth and sixth grade students compete Thursday, Nov. 5, 2015, during the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Spelling Bee at Hillvue Heights Church. (Miranda Pederson/photo@bgdailynews.com)

Applause, both in the form of noisy clapping and people silently holding up and shaking their hands, filled two small auditoriums in the Hillvue Heights Church on Thursday during the sixth annual Deaf and Hard of Hearing Spelling Bee.  

Miranda Stewart, a coordinator of the event as well as a teacher of deaf and hard of hearing students for Warren County Public Schools, said the event serves the districts in the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative. 

The event was founded after a need for a stronger deaf and hard of hearing community in Kentucky schools was identified, she said. 

“We saw the need for our students to meet other students who were just like them, who were deaf and hard of hearing,” she said. The event also provides students the chance to meet potential role models and mentors in deaf and hard-of-hearing adults, she said.

While larger cities such as Bowling Green and Owensboro have small deaf and hard of hearing communities, children in rural areas often never get to meet others who are deaf or hard of hearing, Stewart said. 

“Whether they win or not, they get the experience of meeting other deaf and hard of hearing adults and students and sometimes this is the only time they ever see another person who is deaf or hard of hearing … ,” she said. “That is just an extreme booster for their self esteem and their self confidence to know that they are OK just how they are.”

The spelling bee also allows students to hone their English and spelling skills, Stewart said.  

American Sign Language is its own language, rather than just another way to communicate in English, which makes the process of learning English mechanics more difficult for deaf and hard of hearing students, she said. 

“Most deaf students who sign, they are learning two languages at the same time,” she said. 

Renaye Shipp, a volunteer at this year’s event, said her daughter, Sarah Joiner, a Greenwood High School student, has participated in the competition every year since its inception. 

“It’s given her a chance to socialize with deaf and hard of hearing kids but also gives them a chance to be a part of something that hearing kids are involved in,” she said. “This gives them the chance to be just like every other kid.”

The event was divided into five competitions based on grade level, each with 100 pre-selected words. 

At the third- to fourth-grade bee, three competitors, pared down from an original seven, went through all the words chosen for the grade level, forcing the moderators to use words chosen for the fifth- to sixth-grade competition. 

The top three students will participate in the second annual State Deaf and Hard of Hearing Spelling Bee in Elizabethtown on Dec. 2.

— Follow Daily News reporter Jackson French on Twitter at twitter.com/Jackson_French or visit bgdailynews.com.