S-A-R-A-H Spells Spelling Bee Champ

Sarah Lee of Woodbury School and Kathy Oeung of Morningside School had correctly spelled peculiarity, susceptible and quarantine.

They had beaten out 39 other champion spellers by correctly spelling inchoate, accelerate and gratuity.

But it was a word neither of the sixth-graders probably had ever used--kilometer--that knocked 11-year-old Kathy out of the running and made 12-year-old Sarah the Garden Grove Unified School District’s champion speller in Thursday’s annual elementary school spelling bee.

In an intense competition, 12 boys and 29 girls from 41 of the district’s 43 schools were whittled down for more than an hour. Most correctly spelled the early words such as necessarily and enthusiasm, but discrepancy and mnemonic were big eliminators.

A group of about 20 were given the word aborigine by spell mistress Jan Reed. The contestants wrote the word on their personal green chalkboards and the word was displayed--misspelled--on the overhead projector.

“That’s not how it was spelled on the sheet,” a panicked Cindy Le from Crosby school told one of the proctors as her competitors were eliminated from the bee. They were all called back when the error was fixed. Cindy was knocked from the competition a few rounds later.

Each of the students competing Thursday was the champion of his or her own school. Each school had previously held a spelling bee.

Words in the districtwide bee were randomly chosen from a sixth-grade list of spelling words that the students are able to study. Once that list was exhausted, words were taken from a statewide list.

First-place winner Sarah, who said the hardest word of the day was aborigine, had studied her spelling list every night and had her mother quiz her. She also practiced writing the words on a chalkboard similar to those used in the bee.

Sixth-graders Tran Thai from Marshall School and Daniel J. Sobrepena from Bryant School also were finalists in the spelling bee.

“He studies hard,” said proud mother Myra Sobrepena. “He wouldn’t let me sleep if I didn’t test him.”