Saturday, January 31, 2009

Cottonwood student beats a 'bevy' of competitors at county spelling bee

T.S. Last El Defensor Chieftain General Manager

TSLAST With A.Z. as her initials, it's no wonder that Alice Zhang emerged as the winner of this year's Socorro County Spelling Bee.

The fifth-grader at Cottonwood Valley Charter School in Socorro covered everything from A to Z and everything in between at the spelling competition held Friday morning (Jan. 30) at the Socorro County Courthouse.

Alice, 10, outlasted another fifth-grader, 11-year-old Ariana Leyba of Zimmerly Elementary, to claim first-place.

"I didn't expect to do this well because we were competing against middle schoolers," said Alice, the daughter of Hong Tang and Peng Zhang.

Dozens of students from schools in the Socorro and Magdalena school districts were on hand for the competition. One by one, contestants dropped out until there were just three left.

The field was narrowed to just two when Sarracino Middle School student Ian Jones stumbled on the work "incidental."

"I thought I'd do well, but I didn't get to study for more than five minutes," said Ian, who added that his prep time was cut short because he had to catch the bus.

Alice and Ariana matched each other word for word, letter for letter, for the next few rounds as the tension mounted.

"I think I was more nervous than anyone," said Chuck Zimmerly, who served as the program's pronouncer. "I needed to drink water, my mouth was so dry."

Nerves might have been a factor for Ariana, who finally was tripped up by "dystrophy," spelling it with an "I" instead of a "Y" in the 17th round.

That left it up to Alice, who won by correctly spelling one of the shortest words in the competition: "bevy."

A student of Mr. Gaitens at Cottonwood, Alice also credited her mother for the victory.

"My Mom helped me study every day," said Alice, who practiced spelling 50 words a day in the weeks leading up to the county competition.

For her achievement, Alice won a trophy and a $200 savings bond, courtesy of Socorro Electric Cooperative. She goes on to the state competition in Albuquerque on Thursday, May 14.

"Me and my mom are going to have to study some more," said Alice.

The winner of the state competition advances to the "Super Bowl" of spelling bees, the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., in March.

For their efforts, Ian Jones got a third-place trophy and a $75 savings bond and Ariana Leyba got the runner-up trophy and a $100 savings bond.

tslast@dchieftain.com

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