It took 24 rounds, but a mere fifth-grader schooled her elder middle-grade peers Thursday night to capture first place at the Minneapolis School District spelling bee.
Josie Spanier of Armatage school outlasted 37 other school-level champs, including a two-person duel with runner-up Kate Fraser of Anthony, to prevail.
She won with teriyaki after Fraser misplaced a vowel or two on bravura. (see video above.)
Spanier prevailed despite a diet of such words as pitchblende, tatami, knish, empanada and vulcanize in the late rounds.
A third contestant who stuck with Spanier and Fraser until the last few rounds, John Groos of Seward, was nonplussed by imam, a word clearly foreign to him despite the school's Somali students. He used his option to have the word repeated several times by pronouncer Kelly Maynard, eventually delivering an over-voweled rendition of the term for a Muslim cleric.
Fraser and Groos are eighth-graders, giving them several years of additional reading experience over Spanier. But Spanier started reading before age 4.
Spanier, accompanied by parents Kristine and Brien, plus Armatage staffers Lisa Benson and Daniel Holden, said she spent about an hour daily preparing for the district championship. She used the national spelling bee's website for practice, and used a list of commonly confused words. But she's no drudge—had she not been competing, she told an interviewer, she be "probably watchng 'American Idol.'"
Clad in a pink sweatshirt and spangly boots, she brought the Victorian gothic thriller "Splendors and Glooms" to read before the competition, and in case she was eliminated early. She didn't need it.
