Anacortes middle-schooler wins regional bee
BAY VIEW — Twelve-year-old Elysa Stone can thank her teacher for her victory in the Skagit Valley Herald’s 32nd annual Regional Spelling Bee on Saturday.
“Ambitious,” the final word that the seventh-grader correctly spelled to clinch the bee’s top spot, was a weekly vocabulary word in Elysa’s language arts class, taught by Lea Boggs at Anacortes Middle School.
Then again, placing third in the same bee two years ago, studying a 900-word vocabulary list and having a talented speller for a mother may have also helped. Oh, and her older sister, Kymberly Stone, won the regional bee in 2004. But Elysa still salutes Ms. Boggs.
“It was one of my vocabulary words this week,” Elysa said. “So I have to thank her.”
Elysa was one of 40 area students who competed in the regional spelling bee Saturday morning at Bay View Elementary. All competitors were in the fourth through eighth grade and were from Skagit, Island, San Juan or northern Snohomish counties. Elysa will now travel to Washington, D.C., in May to represent the region in the 81st annual Scripps National Spelling Bee.
But Elysa’s ride to the top wasn’t entirely smooth. She had two distinct moments Saturday that could have put a stop to her D.C. aspirations.
The first happened in round six, when Elysa asked first-time pronouncer Linda Allen for an alternate pronunciation of the word “sevruga,” a caviar from sturgeon fish found in the Caspian Sea. Allen had first pronounced it “sev-roo-gia,” but contest judges could not find the word in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, the bee’s official dictionary.
Elysa held her folded hands before her and patiently watched the judges look for another way to say her troublesome word.
“I was like, ‘I’m probably out anyway,’” Elysa recalled afterward.
But the word was nowhere to be found, and the judges threw it out like yesterday’s fish. Allen instead called out another word, “homburg,” which Elysa calmly and confidently spelled to perfection.
And then there was a drawn-out, one-on-one contest between Elysa and Ramona Fankauser, an eighth-grader at Langley Middle School. Elysa and Ramona were the only remaining contestants starting in round 16. The two turned out to be exceptionally matched, however, as they remained in the game for 18 more rounds, nailing one tough word after another.
“That definitely sets a record for the longest one for us,” said a relieved Bee Director Chris Buchanan after Elysa was declared the winner.
Elysa almost lost in the 31st round, when she incorrectly spelled “succumb.” But Ramona misspelled “interrogative,” putting both back in the game. It all came to a head in round 34. Ramona misspelled one word, and Elysa proceeded to spell two correctly, including Ms. Boggs’ weekly vocabulary word, “ambitious.”
Spelling may be a family affair for the Stones, but Elysa sure appreciated her language arts teacher on Saturday.
