CAMARILLO : Boy Again Wins Trip to Spelling Bee

A Camarillo boy has won the Ventura County Spelling Bee for the second consecutive year. But the thrill of winning hasn’t lost its edge, champion speller Eric Huang said.

“It’s pretty exciting,” Eric said.

The eighth-grader defeated 11 other contestants Wednesday to win an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, where he will compete next month against 225 youngsters in the National Spelling Bee.

Eric, 14, was eliminated from the national competition last year during the sixth of 25 rounds, after he incorrectly spelled the word keno .

This year, he has changed his strategy.

Eric said he is studying words not included on a 2,000-word list provided by spelling bee officials. Instead, the Fremont Intermediate School student is using word lists from two years ago to sharpen his spelling skills.

He even has a coach, Jen-Min Wang, whose son and daughter won county spelling bees in 1985, 1988 and 1990. Eric said he tries to study the lists “as much as possible,” but sometimes only gets to spend 10 minutes each day learning words.

“It depends on the amount of homework I have do,” he said. “Sometimes I only have 10 minutes and the next day I study for an hour.”

During the county competition at Buena High School, Huang said paradigm was the most difficult word he encountered.

“You’re not sure you know it or not,” said Eric, who said the word was not included on the official county word list.

Eric Hong, 12, a seventh-grade student at Carden School in Camarillo, placed second and won a set of encyclopedias.

Diana Ho, 12, a seventh-grader at Los Cerritos Intermediate School in Thousand Oaks, placed third and won a portable electric typewriter.

Eric, who will travel to Washington on May 26, said he is studying about 600 words a day. But Thursday night, he said, he took a break and did only homework.