Henderson takes spelling title

Photo: Matt Hongoltz-Hetling

HUMAN SPELL CHECK — Dustin Henderson spells the word "onslaught" as part of his quest to defend his title as the spelling bee champion in the Oxford Hills School District.

Photo: Matt Hongoltz-Hetling

SUPER SPELLERS — From left, second-place finisher Charles Lang, bee champ Dustin Henderson, and third-place finisher Makayla Hersey accept certificates honoring them for their strong performances.

PARIS — Last week's  SAD 17 District Spelling Bee, held at the Oxford Hills Middle School, was full of both intrigue and duress.

"Duress," as in the word that eighth-grader Dustin Henderson had to correctly spell to get a chance to clinch the final round, and "intrigue," as in the word that he knocked down to finally win first place.

Fellow eighth-grader and friend Charles Lang won second place, after he failed to spell the word "parasite."

Seventh-grader Makayla Hersey won third place after a head-to-head run-off with classmate Emory Frutos, who initially tied with Hersey for third.

"I think that spelling is important, because it's one of those things that we sometimes don't pay attention to because of spellcheck," said Jen Davis, who acted as Bee Mistress. The event drew about 75 onlookers to watch nearly three dozen of the district's brightest elementary and middle-school students slug it for the title of spelling bee champion.

In all, about 165 of 275 prepared words were used to determine the best speller.

Before the bee began, the students chatted with each other nervously, reviewing lists of words and making jokes about phonetic spelling. 

Davis laid out the rules. Students weren't allowed to correct their spelling mid-word. Once they said a letter, that letter couldn't be unsaid, and must be correct.

"So you should really think about how to spell it in your mind before starting," she said.

Most of the students were from the Oxford Hills Middle School, but there were a handful of students from Guy E. Rowe, Paris, Harrison, and Oxford elementary schools.

After a practice round, students took turns approaching a table at the front of the audience and listened intently as Davis announced a word.

Students had an opportunity to ask for a definition, or to hear the word used in a sentence, but those options were rarely invoked.

Each student then faced judges Beverly Yates and Carrie Faith to repeat the word, spell it, and then repeat the word again to indicate that they were done.

Round one words were relatively simple — broth, army, jumbo, and mixer. Still, a few of students were eliminated on such words as gleeful and crabby (misspelled: gleefull and craby).

As the rounds progressed, the field began to shrink. Some students seemed surprised when the judges shook their heads sympathetically. Others seemed to know that they were in trouble.

At the beginning of round four, there were 21 students left. There was a brief controversy, when one girl gave a spelling of A-X-E-L when the judges were looking for A-X-L-E. It was determined that either spelling was correct, and so the girl continued.

Students began to drop more quickly in round five. Flannel, midriff, latent and imitate eliminated four students in that round, and in round six, five more students fell to such words as interpret, defiantly, replete, perturb, and damageable.

With each elimination, the tension ratcheted up another notch, as the remaining students began to realize that they had a decent chance to win.

By round eight, there were just eight contestants left.

"I knew the names of all of those top kids, because  they're always in the library, studying," said Davis, the school's librarian, after the event.

The second boy to go was asked to spell the word fajita.

"Fajita," he said. "F-A-H." Halfway through the letter H, the boy realized that it was the wrong letter. He stretched the A sound out beyond it's normal length, and then simply stopped saying the letter, allowing it to die half-said.

There was a moment of silence as he considered his options.

"Did that count as me saying H?" he asked the judges. With regretful looks, they assured him that it did.

"I-T-A," he finished, his sad smile showing that he knew he wouldn't advance.

By the end of the round, four of the eight finalists had been eliminated, leaving a final four.

In the very next round, Hersey mistakenly spelled embryo as "E-M-B-R-I-O," while Frutos forgot an "L" in lullaby.

"I knew it the whole time," said Frutos, shaking his head after the event. "I knew I was going to panic when I got to the front, and I did."

Next time, said Frutos, he plans to spell the word in his head before opening his mouth.

The final matchup between Lang and Henderson was not unexpected.

Lang had scored higher than any other student in the district on a qualifying test, with 11 of 12 words spelled correctly.

Henderson scored nine on the test, but had the notable distinction of being the defending champion, having won the district bee as a seventh-grader in 2011.

After the contest was over, Henderson let Lang know that he had been a worthy opponent.

"I said, 'that was really tough,'" he recalled.

The two went head-to-head for six rounds before Henderson won. He said that the most difficult word for him was "stratosphere," which he faced in round ten.

"It's very long," he said. "If I missed a letter, I might not notice."

Henderson said he was unsure of the secret to his success.

"I don't know," he answered. "I wish I had a good answer for you, but I don't."

Henderson's father, Jason, said that Henderson is a voracious reader.

"He's always loved to read," he said. "He didn't get it from me."

But Henderson said that, while he does read a lot, he has friends who read even more.

SAD 17's literacy coach, Cheryl Lang, said that reading is a big part of succeeding at a spelling bee.

"They are all readers," she said of the finalists. "You see them a lot in the library."

Henderson, though, may have a special passion for reading, and he notices it when he comes across a new word. He said that his favorite class is Language Arts.

Cheryl also noted that the bee is a good, competitive event for students who may not participate in mainstream sports or other activities.

Henderson and the other finalists have been invited to compete at the county-wide spelling bee, which will take place on February 8 at 7 p.m. at Sacopee Valley Middle School in Hiram.

Last year, said Henderson's father, Henderson couldn't compete at the county level because he was sick on the day of the event.