Loser Sues to Soothe Spelling Bee’s Sting

The last word from this year’s Ventura County’s championship spelling bee is L-A-W-S-U-I-T.

A 14-year-old Thousand Oaks boy who claims he was cheated out of winning the contest has sued the competition’s sponsors.

Eighth-grader Gavin L. McDonald said the Ventura County Star-Free Press newspaper bent the spelling bee’s rules to allow a Camarillo boy to unfairly reach the contest’s finals April 8.

That contestant, Steven Chen, 13, defeated Gavin to win an expense-paid trip to Washington for last month’s national championship spell-off.

Mix-Up in Judging

The lawsuit, which asks $2 million, claims that the newspaper’s editor improperly permitted two students from Steven’s school to compete in the county championship after a mix-up occurred during the judging of a preliminary spell-off at Los Altos School in Camarillo.

As a result, Gavin “suffered humiliation, intimidation, mortification, worry, grief, anxiety, fright, mental anguish and emotional distress,” according to the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Ventura County Superior Court by Gavin’s father, Leonard.

The suit alleges that Gavin “has lost respect and standing” in Thousand Oaks and is now unwilling to compete in academic contests.

“I felt kind of cheated,” Gavin said Thursday, shortly before he was honored by classmates at Redwood Intermediate School in end-of-the-year ceremonies for being the campus’ top speller. “I felt I could have won. I felt it wasn’t fair.”

The Los Altos School mix-up occurred when Steven and another contestant, Victor Wang, 12, were asked to spell “horsey” and judges used the wrong dictionary to rule on their spellings.

Steven spelled it H-O-R-S-Y, which was ruled incorrect by the judges. Victor spelled it H-O-R-S-E-Y, which judges said was correct. They declared Victor the winner, according to the suit.

Several hours after the contest ended, however, Steven discovered that the official dictionary used for the spelling bee specified that the word could be spelled either way. When he pointed that out to the judges, they named the boys co-winners after Victor refused to surrender the school championship and reopen the contest.

Gavin Beaten in Finals

In the Ventura County finals held a few weeks later, Steven won the championship by outspelling Gavin in the 27th round. Steven placed 26th in the national championship held May 28. That contest was won by Stephanie Petit, 13, of Bethel Park, Pa.

Leonard McDonald, an Irish-born importer, said Thursday that he reluctantly filed the suit after Star-Free Press editor Julius Gius refused to acknowledge or rectify the error. McDonald said printed spelling bee rules specify that Steven should have lodged his protest during the contest, not after it was over.

McDonald said Gius told him, “We pay the bills--we’ll do what we like.”

Gius denied any wrongdoing, however. He said Thursday that local sponsors determine local contest procedures because the printed rules pertain only to the spelling bee’s national competition.

“The purpose of the spelling bee is to select the best young speller in Ventura County. That’s what happened,” Gius said. “I’m sorry this great teaching tool is being maligned.”

Gius said his newspaper has staged the county spelling bee in conjunction with Scripps Howard Newspapers’ national contest for more than 30 years. He said this year’s challenge to the results is the first ever.

Scripps Howard was also named in the McDonald suit, but national contest officials in Cincinnati could not be reached for comment.

Gius said his paper spends about $10,000 a year promoting the Ventura County spelling bee and paying for prizes. According to Gius, his newspaper paid for a trip to Washington for Gavin and his father last year, when Gavin won the county’s 1986 spelling bee.

The lawsuit, Gius said, will not dissuade the newspaper from staging a 1988 contest.

“We’re not going to let Mr. McDonald’s ill manners stand in the way,” Gius said.