Floyd County Schools held the system's annual Spelling Bee, Friday, February 9, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in the Board Room at the Board of Education office on Riverside Parkway . Hope Bettler, an eight-grade student at Armuchee Middle School , emerged as the top speller in the Floyd County School System for 2007. Hope and ten other individual school spelling champions, from schools with grades 4-8, participated in the Floyd County Schools Spelling Bee. John Knight, from Model Middle School , finished second in the competition.  

This is the third consecutive year that an Armuchee Middle Student has won the competition and the second championship for Hope Bettler.  She started the string of wins for Armuchee by winning the Floyd County Schools Spelling Bee in 2005 when she was in the sixth-grade at Armuchee Middle.  This is also the second year in a row that the system winner was a repeat champion.  Last year's winner, Abbey Montieth, also won the competition in 2003 when participating as a fourth-grader from Armuchee Elementary.

Hope said that she had not really spent a lot of time studying for the event. "It is just a freaky ability that I have," she said.   Donald Bettler, Hope's father and a teacher at Armuchee High, attributed her success to a love of reading. "Hope has just always been an avid reader and she now reads many books on the high school level." Hope also attributed her success to a love of reading.  "Reading a lot and a big vocabulary makes a good speller," she said.   Hope's mother, Holly Bettler, is also a teacher at Midway Primary in the Floyd County School System.

Hope received a plaque to commemorate her accomplishment from the Floyd County Association of Educators, sponsor of the event. Hope and John will represent Floyd County Schools in the District Spelling Bee on February 24, 2007 at the Floyd County Board of Education Office. The District Spelling Bee will begin at 10:00 a.m. and will feature the top spellers from school systems in District One.

School spelling champions participating in the Floyd County Spelling Bee were: Alto Park Elementary, Drake Langston; Armuchee Elementary, Tyler League; Armuchee Middle, Hope Bettler; Cave Spring Elementary, LeeAnn Smith; Coosa Middle School, Darby Hall; Garden Lakes Elementary, Tineka Foster; Johnson Elementary, Leif Womack; Model Elementary, Michael Ellis; Model Middle School, John Knight; Pepperell Elementary, Bill Crowe; Pepperell Middle School, Justin Swift.