Usually on the grounds of Brookhaven Elementary, children in grades three and four bustle about in hallways, on playgrounds and in classrooms in relative harmony.

Yesterday, however, one student stood a step above the rest.

On such a rare occurrence as Tuesday offered, students gathered in the sloping auditorium and watched classmates go toe to toe in the first ever run-off of the annual spelling bee.

The course of the students participating in the event at BES is usually set in stone: normally, all students are faced with a fourth grade list of words. Every student gets a chance to spell a word correctly until every class is narrowed down to one representative. Out of more than 200 fourth graders, 10 advance to the final elimination round on Dec. 10.

This year, 5 students out-lasted the list leaving the judges at a loss for words.

“We had to end the first spelling bee and provide the remaining students with another list,” BES Principal Shelley Riley explained. “In order to provide them time to study we had to extend the runoff until after the holidays. Unfortunately, we missed the deadline to register for the national bee.”

At the return of the regular school schedule, BES 4th graders watched in anticipation as five dwindled to four, then to three, then finally to two.

At long last, Lauren Peters and Tyra Mason were left standing alone on the wooden stage. The two swapped words until a slight misstep by Mason on “celestial.” To seal the deal, her competitor stood in her stead and correctly spelled out the difficult word, earning Peters the lionization and respect of her peers. Coming in third and fourth were Derek Brown and Tameron Nealy, respectively.