Spell ? Check.
RIO RANCHO HAS TWO-TIME SPELLING BEE CHAMPION
Been there. Done that. Spelled “fatuous” for the first time — and became Rio Rancho Public Schools’ first two-time spelling bee champion. That’s how it went for Enchanted Hills Elementary fifth-grader Adrian de la Peña Friday morning at Eagle (“Eagel,” if you go by the program) Ridge Middle School. The mop-headed boy said this year’s bee was easier than last year’s, except for that winning word. “I’ve never heard of fatuous,” he said. “Yeah, I noticed the typo; it’s funny.” The bee began with 29 spellers, with two contestants
absent.
After a practice round — worth one point — spellers had a spelling round and a vocabulary round.
The winner correctly spelled “ambulance” and knew which response was correct — of two choices — for his vocabulary word, “fatigue.”
The field was pared down to 14 for the start of the elimination rounds.
De la Peña’s next word was “machismo”; after that, and with only six other contestants remaining, he got “condor,” and then “amicable.”
Then there were two: de la Peña and Eagle Ridge Middle School seventh-grader Annarose Campa, making her first bee appearance. He correctly spelled “paradigm,” while Campa erred on “sauerbraten.”
All that remained for de la Peña to repeat was spell “fatuous.”
You know the rest. He then went to his seat, took a swig of water and waited for what was left: participants got certificates and goodie bags, and posed with RRPS Superintendent Sue Cleveland as a way to remember the day in a photo.
“Oh, my gosh. He is an excellent, excellent student,” beamed Enchanted Hills Elementary Principal Cathy Baehr. “Wonderful young man. I’m just so proud of him.
“And definitely he surpassed my spelling abilities,” she added. She wasn’t alone. When the bee ended, Cleveland asked the audience — mostly family members and RRPS principals on hand to watch their representatives battle — if any of them could have spelled all the words. No hands went up.
“I couldn’t spell all of those words,” Cleveland admitted.
Two students from each of RRPS’ 10 public elementary schools and four middle schools compete in the bee, along with two spellers representing St. Thomas Aquinas School and one speller representing the middle school grades in RRPS’ Rio Rancho Cyber Academy. Students advanced to the district bee by winning competitions at their schools.
De la Peña and Campa — Lincoln Middle School seventhgrader Kyla Gardner finished third and is the district’s alternate — next head to the New Mexico Spelling Bee on March 18 at Sandia Prep, where they will square off against the best spellers from 22 of New Mexico’s 33 counties for the right to compete in the National Spelling Bee. The 2017 National Spelling Bee is scheduled May 28-June 3 in National Harbor, Md.