ROBERTSDALE, Ala. — Take a gaggle of nervous fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students. Add a sympathetic audience, a group of judges and a “pronouncer.”

It looks like it’s spelling bee time.

That was the scene at Robertsdale Elementary as a group of students, two from each class, worked to earn a spot at the countywide spelling bee, which will be held Feb. 2, at 4 p.m. at the Loxley Civic Center. The winner of that bee, which will have representatives from all the county schools, will head to the state spelling bee at Oak Mountain High School in Birmingham this March. The winner of that bee earns an all-expenses-paid trip for two to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. in May.

Each classroom in the school held a competition to determine the two students who would go on to the school bee.

And while there can be only one winner, as pronouncer Joey Knight told the students, all should be proud of getting to the school bee.

Robertsdale Mayor Charles Murphy, Patricia Campbell, and Ashley Kucera served as judges.

“There is no sense getting nervous,” Knight told the youngsters. “You are already the top spellers in your class.”

But the nerves, the fingers in the mouth, big sighs, the shaky feet, the twisted hair, were on display as the youngsters came up for their first words.

The first word of the bee was “coffee.” That got the students jazzed up, but the words ramped up in difficulty. Nine students left the stage at the end of round one. The contestants received hearty rounds of applause from the audience.

Some of the younger students had to stand on tiptoes to reach the microphone, causing Knight to urge the youngster to adjust the mic to their height.

Knight, a former teacher, recognized that the youngsters were getting into difficulty with certain words.

“Most words missed have two ses and two ms,” Knight told the audience.

After four rounds of spelling such words as “casserole” and “consonant,” the bee was down to the last three spellers, Adison Barnett, B.J. Coley, and Andrew Williams. Williams earned the right to represent Robertsdale Elementary at the district bee, spelling “pharmacy” and “faucet” correctly. Barnett took third place, and Coley second. All three students are sixth-graders. Should Williams not be able to represent the school at the district bee, the two will be expected to step in.

“We are very proud of all our spellers,” said Amy Ile, a fourth-grade teacher at Robertsdale Elementary, who coordinated the event.