Valley View Elementary student takes Los Angeles County Spelling Bee crown
In an age of super heroes and meta-abilities, Valley View Elementary School’s Sonia Carrillo leaned on an old-fashioned trait — courage.
Pushing aside fear and nerves, the fifth-grader bested 27 competitors to win the 14th annual Los Angeles County Spelling Bee in Alhambra last Wednesday.
Carrillo continues an era of recent dominance for Glendale Unified as the 11-year-old is the district’s third straight county spelling bee champion and fourth in seven years, joining Franklin’s Elaine Pimental (2018), Wilson’s June Musurlian (2017) and Valley View’s Yeri Kim (2013).
Carrillo’s victory advances her to the California State Elementary Spelling Bee Championship to be held May 11 in Stockton.
“It was scary being up there, and I was OK if I didn’t win,” Carrillo said of the L.A. County finals. “Obviously, I’m really happy that I did win, but I was also really glad I got it over with, too.”
The competition lasted 14 rounds — about 90 minutes — as the Glendale Unified titlist took on county district-level champions from communities such as Inglewood, Compton and Culver City.
“I didn’t look up once during the entire thing,” Carrillo said, regarding how she dealt with the stress. “When I asked for the definition, I just looked at the microphone, and I didn’t look at the spell master or anything.”
In the final round, Carrillo spelled “quadrennial” correctly, which runner-up Carlos Hernandez of Montebello Intermediate School missed. Carrillo then clinched the crown by correctly spelling “dichotomy.”
Carrillo’s mother, Doreen, described her feelings as “giddy, excited and thrilled” about her daughter winning the competition. One emotion she did not express, however, was doubt.
“Not to be cocky, or have hubris, we kind of went in with that little feeling of, ‘you know she can win it,’” Doreen Carrillo said. “We knew she could win it, but you don’t want to be overconfident.”
That confidence was backed by talent fostered at a young age.
“I joke with Sonia that spelling is her super power,” Doreen Carrillo said. “She’s been reading since she’s been 2, and she’s kind of a natural. We provided a lot of books and just stepped back.”
Even with the win, Sonia Carrillo isn’t one to pat herself on the back.
“She’s definitely a highly self-motivated student, and she’s very mature for her age,” said Carrillo’s fifth-grade teacher, Christine Lee. “She’s reliable, but she’s also very humble.”
Lee added, “We even announced [Friday] in front of all the students that she won L.A. County, and she doesn’t like showing off, which is awesome about her.”
Carrillo said she was thrown a curve in the days before the Los Angeles competition.
At the Glendale Unified spelling bee, which she won on Feb. 4, the district’s competitors were given a list of words to practice.
The Los Angeles spelling bee had no such set to study.
“They sent an email before, and they told us to study Latin and Greek root words, and I did,” Sonia Carrillo said. “I just had those running through my mind in the week coming up to that.”
One unexpected twist came when Carrillo said she had difficulty understanding a test word.
“On about the sixth or seventh round, I got ‘wince’, which is not a hard word to spell, but [the spell master] said it kind of weird, and it sounded like with a “t” and maybe a “z” at the end, so I had to ask for the definition, and I got really scared,” Carrillo said. “But then I knew what it was, and I got the word.”
