Maria Wasilewski spelled 'salve' to win The Free Lance-Star's regional bee and competes in this week's Scripps National Spelling Bee. CHRISTOPHER WEHLING/THE FREE LANCE-STAR View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

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Local spelling champ carries the family torch

13-year-old Maria Wasilewski achieves a family milestone with trip to the Scripps National Spelling Bee this week

Date published: 5/27/2008

By LAURA MOYER

When Maria Wasilewski of Stafford County stands onstage this week at the Grand Hyatt Washington hotel, she'll fulfill a family quest.

It's been 45 years since one of her uncles competed for a chance to enter the Olympics of youth spelling--the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee. An aunt tried next, then Maria's mom.

All got to the final rounds of their district bees, then faltered.

About the time Maria's future mother was competing in suburban Maryland, her future dad won a bee in his Michigan hometown. But that bee didn't send its champion to Washington.

More recently, two of Maria's older sisters were bee contenders, losing only in the final rounds of contests that would have sent them to the national stage.

And then came Maria.

In March, the home-schooled seventh-grader remained poised through 25 rounds of competition to win the Regional Spelling Bee, sponsored by The Free Lance-Star.

Besides awarding Maria a cash prize, the paper sent her to Washington for five days of bee activities and competition that started yesterday.

She's among 288 spellers from across the United States and around the world who have headed to Washington for the bee, which begins Thursday.

Maria is a soft-spoken 13-year-old, the fifth of Steven and Rita Wasilewski's eight children.

Her siblings are Teresa, 22; Christa, 21; Michael, 20; Kelsey, 16; Regina, 11; Dominic, 7; and Joe, 5.

Like Maria, all were or are home-schooled. Her eldest two sisters are now college students, and her big brother is in the Army.

Maria doesn't remember exactly when she realized she could be good at spelling, but she does think her sisters' bee experiences influenced her.

She started studying a booklet produced by the Scripps bee in preparation for the 2007 Regional Spelling Bee and made it to the top three.

In January of this year, she began studying again in earnest, reviewing several source lists, writing each word and defining those she didn't know.

She's filled page after page in a battered spiral notebook that younger sister Regina says goes everywhere.

Since her Regional Bee win in March, Maria has made liberal use of an unabridged dictionary that was among her prizes. She uses it to check word origins, pronunciations and definitions.

Two hundred eighty-eight spellers ages 8 to 15 are in Washington this week for the Scripps National Spelling Bee, held at the Grand Hyatt Washington hotel. All spellers will take a 50-word computerized spelling test before the first day of competition, which is Thursday. That morning, everyone gets a chance to stand onstage and spell one word. Of the 50 words on the computerized test, 25 count toward a points total that will determine who advances. The word spelled in the onstage round also counts. The goal is to narrow the field down to about 100 spellers, a bee spokeswoman said. Those 100 are quarterfinalists, and their competition can be viewed online Thursday afternoon at ESPN360.com. Any speller still in the competition on Friday is a semifinalist. From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., the semifinal rounds will be televised live on ESPN. Ten spellers will become finalists. They will vie for the $30,000 top prize in final rounds to be broadcast live on ABC from 8 to 10 p.m.

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Date published: 5/27/2008

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