Post by Charity on Apr 3, 2006 12:33:20 GMT -5
East Valley students swept the top six spots Saturday in the state spelling bee at Arizona State University.
And the best speller of them all — for the second year in a row — was Gilbert home-school student Jonathan Horton, 13.
Jonathan outlasted the field of 27 regional champions, who ranged in age from 10 to 14, when he correctly spelled “osphresis” in the 20th round. The word came about four hours into the competition.
“Finally,” Jonathan said on stage in a half-sigh after spelling the word, a noun meaning the sense of smell.
KAET-T V (Channel 8) hosted the bee at its ASU studios and will broadcast highlights at 5 p.m. April 23.
Official pronouncer Roxie Fry opened the bee with a bit of trivia. She asked spellers and the audience if anyone knew which word people looked up most frequently in the online version of Merriam Webster’s Dictionary.
The answer: Integrity.
“It doesn’t matter how you place today,” Fry told the spellers. “You will do well for the rest of your lives. It’s just important that you do it with integrity.”
During the bee, Jonathan displayed a style at the microphone that fell somewhere between flamboyant and frenetic. He told jokes. He gripped the microphone as if it might fly away before he could correctly spell yet another impossible word.
He asked for definitions, alternate pronunciations and for words to be used in sentences far more than any other contestant. He sounded out the letters in a slow, emphatic voice, pausing occasionally to whisper the suspected spelling into his fist — a technique he adopted earlier in his career after uttering out loud an incorrect spelling.
There are no take-backs in a spelling bee.
After the awards ceremony, he had a simple explanation for his plodding style.
“The problem was the words,” he said while mingling with his family and the other spellers. “Once I get to the national competition, there won’t be as much pressure, even though it’s on ESPN.”
Jonathan’s next stop will be the Scripps National Spelling Bee May 31 and June 1 in Washington, D.C.
His win in the final round came over Pooja Paode, an 11-year-old Gilbert student who attends Chandler’s Shumway Elementary School. Pooja stumbled on the word “ipecac,” the dried root of a South American plant. “I think I said it too fast,” she said.
On stage, after the East Valley spellers exchanged handshakes and high-fives, one whispered question buzzed through their midst.
“Did you know that one?”
www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=62362
And the best speller of them all — for the second year in a row — was Gilbert home-school student Jonathan Horton, 13.
Jonathan outlasted the field of 27 regional champions, who ranged in age from 10 to 14, when he correctly spelled “osphresis” in the 20th round. The word came about four hours into the competition.
“Finally,” Jonathan said on stage in a half-sigh after spelling the word, a noun meaning the sense of smell.
KAET-T V (Channel 8) hosted the bee at its ASU studios and will broadcast highlights at 5 p.m. April 23.
Official pronouncer Roxie Fry opened the bee with a bit of trivia. She asked spellers and the audience if anyone knew which word people looked up most frequently in the online version of Merriam Webster’s Dictionary.
The answer: Integrity.
“It doesn’t matter how you place today,” Fry told the spellers. “You will do well for the rest of your lives. It’s just important that you do it with integrity.”
During the bee, Jonathan displayed a style at the microphone that fell somewhere between flamboyant and frenetic. He told jokes. He gripped the microphone as if it might fly away before he could correctly spell yet another impossible word.
He asked for definitions, alternate pronunciations and for words to be used in sentences far more than any other contestant. He sounded out the letters in a slow, emphatic voice, pausing occasionally to whisper the suspected spelling into his fist — a technique he adopted earlier in his career after uttering out loud an incorrect spelling.
There are no take-backs in a spelling bee.
After the awards ceremony, he had a simple explanation for his plodding style.
“The problem was the words,” he said while mingling with his family and the other spellers. “Once I get to the national competition, there won’t be as much pressure, even though it’s on ESPN.”
Jonathan’s next stop will be the Scripps National Spelling Bee May 31 and June 1 in Washington, D.C.
His win in the final round came over Pooja Paode, an 11-year-old Gilbert student who attends Chandler’s Shumway Elementary School. Pooja stumbled on the word “ipecac,” the dried root of a South American plant. “I think I said it too fast,” she said.
On stage, after the East Valley spellers exchanged handshakes and high-fives, one whispered question buzzed through their midst.
“Did you know that one?”
www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=62362