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Sixteen champion spellers made for a refreshing Saturday at the regional bee Date published: 3/18/2009 By Ed Jones I HAVE TROUBLE pronouncing words that begin with "l" when I'm in public. At least I think I do. So far, I've never stumbled over an "l." But this perceived problem is so stuck in my mind that I once introduced the lieutenant governor of Virginia as "the second-highest officeholder in the commonwealth." That was my way of getting around his "l-word" title. It should come as no surprise then that my fourth stint as the pronouncer at the annual Regional Spelling Bee was not exactly my easiest gig. One significant slip by a pronouncer could send a hardworking young speller to the sidelines. I did manage to pronounce "lithe" without incident. Still, most of the 16 contestants on the stage at James Monroe High School Saturday looked a lot cooler than I felt. And that includes the grade-schoolers. Fortunately, we all persevered and, thanks to some splendid planning by Laurie Carter and other members of The Free Lance-Star staff, the bee went off without a hitch. In fact, it produced the most dramatic outcome of the four regional bees I've witnessed. How often does the youngest member of the field, fourth-grader Basim Abielmona, survive a late-round miscue (his last opponent missed her first word right after he missed his), and then triumph several rounds later? So it's off to D.C. in For the record, students from Fredericksburg Christian have won three of the four bees to date. But it's not just the tense competition that has made me a bee aficionado. Indeed, the competitive pressure, with the inevitable tears, is my least favorite part of the program. What I love to watch are bright, disciplined boys and girls displaying their prowess, not just in memorizing, but in understanding the meaning and origin of words. It's not every day that an eighth-grader asks me for a language of origin and, when I answer "Hindi," plows ahead with the correct spelling. In an age of twittering and fractured-English texting, it's wonderful to see youngsters step back from the constant chatter to focus on words that range from the everyday to the barely known. Nobody's perfect. Sometimes you forget that "junta" isn't spelled with an "h" or that "relevant" is one of those could-go-either-way words that don't end in "ent." But these spellers did themselves and their schools proud. There weren't any cheerleaders. The audience fell short of a championship football game crowd. But the drama of this competition would have been hard to beat. Just as in athletics, practice and study paid off. Ed Jones: 540/374-5401
of course they won 3 of the last 4 spelling bees, they don't have to follow the SOL's and can waste time on spelling!
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