Word wizard
Halifax teen will represent province at U.S. spelling competition
Spelling bee winner has a way with words
Nova Scotia’s spelling bee champion says training he took in Air Cadets helped him stay calm in the final rounds of the provincial competition.
Theo Thompson-Armstrong, a Grade 8 student at Gorsebrook Junior High, beat out 14 other students from across Nova Scotia to win the Big Spelling Bee recently at the Halifax Central Library.
Theo joined cadets in September 2015, and this winter he took up biathlon, which combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting at targets.
“For biathlon, I learned how to control my breathing, learned how to calm my heart for the shooting part and that is what I did to stay calm on stage.”
It was Theo’s third time in the provincial bee, and even though he finished fifth last year, the Halifax teen had good reason to be a little nervous.
Because Nova Scotia teachers were working to rule, he didn’t think he’d be able to compete, so he hadn’t studied.
“It was just four days before the spelling bee that work to rule ended and I was allowed to register,” he said. “Normally I’d have done a lot of studying on my own, studying language and words, but this year, with just four days, basically Dad quizzed me.”
The students are all provided with the same list of 1,000 words to study.
For the first 14 rounds students were asked words from the study list.
Theo’s first words were easy enough: icicle, baton, stucco, lariat – and slowly they got trickier: bravura, schnauzer, pochismo, forsythia, Nachtmusik, shrieval, lahar, Weimaraner and Uitlander.
Eventually, it came down to Theo and one other student for the championship.
The competition has to end on a correct spelling.
Theo had the first chance to win, with ‘duchess’ for his championship word, but he added a T before the C.
When Theo later spelled larkspur wrong, his opponent left out an M in ‘commission.’
At the very end, his opponent spelled ‘ultralight’ wrong and Theo correctly spelled his championship word, ‘fatality.’
With the win Thompson-Armstrong won a large trophy and a trip for him and one parent to Washington, D.C., to represent Nova Scotia at the Scripps National Spelling Bee May 28 to June 3.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada has hosted the Big Spelling Bee the last two years in Nova Scotia.