BETHANY LUTHERAN STUDENT EXCELS IN LOCAL SPELLING BEE
Fifth-grader, D’Angelo Winston spells, ‘amino’ to claim title
A pandemic evidently could not slow down Vacaville students’ spelling prowess. A total of 19 elementary schoolers put their spelling skills to the test, with Doveon D’Angelo Winston — a fifth-grader at Bethany Lutheran School — emerging as the victor after 22 rounds of correctly spelling words of varying levels of difficulty.
This year’s Grace B. Powell Citywide Spelling Bee, presented by the Vacaville Rotary Club, was very different from past years. Typically, the event consists of an elementary and middle school competition held at Will C. Wood High School’s Catwalk Theatre. However, due to a lack of applications from middle schoolers, only the elementary competition was held this year. It also saw a change in venue to the multipurpose room at Kairos Public Schools.
The biggest change was the amount of social distancing on display. The spellers stood behind plastic barriers when receiving words from the pronouncer, each went up one at a time, chairs between spellers — as well as those in the audience — were spaced apart, microphones and chairs were wiped down af
ter each round, and everyone in the room was wearing masks, except when spellers were spelling words.
However, one element from past years remained firmly on display: the adeptness of the spellers. It was a celebration of the bright young minds of Vacaville’s public and private schools, with three students from Alamo Elementary School, three from Browns Valley, two from Callison, two from Padan, four from Bethany Lutheran, three from Vacaville Christian School and two from Kairos. All were winners of the spelling bees at their respective schools, which allowed them to advance to the citywide competition.
“Thanks for doing such a great job at your schools,” PJ Goodson, past Rotary Club president, said in her opening remarks.
Goodson said it was a real treat to hold the spelling bee, especially given the challenges of the past year.
“Everybody has been living the life of shutdown and distancing, and we’re just so happy that COVID was not going to stop the Vacaville Rotary Club from having a spelling bee,” she said.
The judges this year consisted of Anna Eaton, executive director of the Vacaville Neighborhood Boys & Girls Club; Sarah Harper, co-owner of Hank & Hazel’s Really Good Sausages; and Christina Strunk, merchandising director for Ariat. Dr. Martha Williams, past Rotary Club president, served as the pronouncer.
The first round started simple enough, with spellers advancing for correctly spelling words like “punting,” “reply” and “fumble.” As the rounds went on, spellers were slowly eliminated for misspelling words like “tapestry,” “cahoots” and “surmised.” They also had to remember to correctly capitalize proper nouns like “Mars” or “Pakistan,” most of whom were able to do so.
Students were also able to advance for correctly spelling words like “jangled,” “salamanders,” “drastic,” “cannonade” and “anemometers.”
By the 20th round, only three spellers remained in the competition: Doveon, Bethany Lutheran fifthgrader Evan Purdy and Padan sixth-grader Taleya Turner. In the 22nd round, Doveon clinched a win by spelling “amino.”
Doveon told The Reporter afterward that he was feeling happy. He chose to enter the spelling bee because he wanted to win.
“I felt like I could do it,” he said. “I was pretty confident in myself.”
Doveon spent the entire week studying the words for the competition, and he experienced a wave of emotions as he was behind the podium.
“I was feeling anxious at first, then I started to feel more calm as it went,” he said.
Doveon’s parents were equally proud, holding their phones out during the competition whenever it was his turn and enthusiastically taking group pictures afterward. His father, Larry, said it was a “super amazing” accomplishment. His mother, Angela, was also overjoyed, although she anticipated his placement.
“I knew he would either place between one and three,” she said. “I’m very proud.”