Area 11-year-old thrilled by time on ‘ important stage’
NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — After participating in his first school spelling bee in third grade, Eric Gitson hatched a plan: He would win — or at least participate in — the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
On Wednesday, the Delaware, Ohio, fifth-grader made at least one part of that dream come true.
As for the winning part? He has three more years to achieve that goal.
Eric, who attends David Smith Elementary School, easily spelled his first word, “maquiladora,” which is a type of factory in Mexico, in the first round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. In round three, he was given “obliquity,” an astronomical term describing the angle of the tilt of the Earth’s axis of rotation. He nailed it, generating an immediate grin of satisfaction.
But in the end, a 24-point test kept him from making it to day two. To qualify for today’s final day of competition, spellers had to correctly answer 23 of 24 questions — in addition to correctly spelling both words they were given onstage.
Eric was one of two central Ohioans among those competing Wednesday for the giant loving cup awarded to spellingbee champions. He was sponsored by Ohio University’s Scripps College of Communication.
Gabriel Ennin, 13, of Reynoldsburg, nailed “tragedian,” an actor who specializes in tragedies, in the second round, but he stumbled on “conurbation,” which means an extended urban area, in the third round.
Gabriel is a seventhgrader at Pickerington’s Ridgeview STEM Junior High School and was sponsored by the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette.
This was the second year of participation for Gabriel, who is eligible for one more year. He said he studied the roots of the words more than he did last year, but he was stumped by “conurbation.”
“He put in a lot of time,” said his mother, Christina. “He reads a lot, tries his best to break down to get to the etymology.”
For Eric, the experience was a mix of nerve–wracking and exhilarating.
Still, “I really like being up on the stage,” he said between rounds two and three. “It just feels like a very important stage that I’m on.”
“Really important? Like you’re not 11 anymore?” joked his mother, Cassie Prodanova.
“Really important,” he said earnestly.
Eric and Gabriel were among 291 children to advance to the national bee, having beaten out more than 11 million other students in the U.S. and six other countries, including South Korea, Ghana, and Japan.
One Ohioan — Maggie Sheridan of Mansfield — was a rarity for another reason: She is the only speller participating in the national bee who is a triplet.
Maggie, 13, a seventhgrader at Lexington Junior High School, is one of two Ohioans to make it to today’s finals. Owen Kovalik of Medina is the other. In all, 40 spellers advanced.
Seventeen Ohioans participated in the bee this year. Two additional spellers — from West Virginia and Kentucky — were sponsored by Ohio news organizations: The Marietta Times and WCPO-TV in Cincinnati.
This is the bee’s 90th year. Ohioans have taken home the trophy nine times — most recently in 2010, when Anamika Veeramani, sponsored by The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, won on the word “stromuhr.”
Today’s early finals of the bee will be broadcast live on ESPN2 beginning at 10 a.m., and tonight’s conclusion will be broadcast live on ESPN at 8:30.
The winner will receive a $40,000 cash prize and an engraved trophy from Scripps, a $2,500 U.S. savings bond and a reference library from MerriamWebster, a $400 reference library from Encyclopaedia Britannica and two trips: one to New York City to appear on “Live with Kelly and Ryan,” and one to Hollywood to appear on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”