They didn’t win a million dollars, but...

They didn’t win a million dollars, but three Carson students took top honors last week in the 14th annual junior high spelling bee sponsored by Region A of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

“A Carson sweep” is how it was described by Richard Schwartz, director of instruction for Los Angeles elementary and junior high schools south of Imperial Highway.

The top prize went to Renee Bouchard, a ninth-grader at White Junior High School.

“We’re very proud of her,” said Janet Penelton, White’s assistant principal.

Bouchard, who was unsuccessful in the Region A spell-off the two previous years, “was pretty confident” she would place in the top three this year because the bee “was held on my birthday,” she said. “I wasn’t so sure I would get first place because the other two were real good. They just made little mistakes.”

Bouchard, an A and B student who lives in Harbor City, spelled “sobriety” correctly to beat out Eileen Habacon of Carnegie Junior High. The second-place finisher, Habacon, had stumbled on “inseparable,” spelling it incorrectly as “inseperable.” In third place was LaShonda Crane of Curtiss Junior High, who missed “theorem.” She started to spell it--T-H-O--realized the mistake, buried her face in her hands and stopped.

As it happened, Bouchard had been talking about the word that sealed her victory just before the contest.

“On the way to the spelling bee, (spelling coach Gladys) Verdine was telling me that a student of hers . . . missed that word and got second place because of it. So I remembered that word,” she said.

Eight schools in Lomita, Carson, Wilmington, San Pedro and elsewhere in the southern end of the city of Los Angeles participated in the spelling bee, which was held at the Port of Los Angeles offices in San Pedro. Each participating school sent its three top spellers to the regional contest.

Verdine, an English teacher, said students who wish to enter the contest are given lists of words to study at the beginning of the school year.

Bouchard, who has enjoyed spelling since elementary school, said she studied her list “every day at lunch.” After school, she and 15 others practiced with Verdine. “She would say the words to us and we would have to spell them to her. I would also study at night at home on my own,” she said.

At the school test, five students got perfect scores on a list of 100 words and Verdine said she had to give an additional test to winnow the group to three.

All of the winners received trophies donated by the San Pedro Sea Lions organization.