Students Compete for Glory at the Santa Cruz County Spelling Championship

The county’s best young spellers put their skills to the test on Saturday afternoon, spelling their hearts out until only the top two were left standing at the annual Santa Cruz County Spelling Championship.

The competition at UC Santa Cruz brought out 109 students from 40 county schools, each coming in first or second in their school spelling competitions, to compete in two divisions—Junior, grades 4-6; and Senior, grades 7-9.

Capitola's New Brighton Middle School student, Lauren Finnigan, tied for 10th place in the junior division.

Other Capitola-Soquel participants include Maximilian Umney of New Brighton Middle School, who competed in the senior division; and Haley Dison and
Nate Werdmuller of Soquel Elementary School.

The two grade levels were separated into different auditoriums for the competition, which was a written competition instead of the traditional oral. Students were seated in the auditorium with pencils and papers, given the words and definitions, one at a time, and then 15 seconds to write.

Small cheers and whispered yeses could be heard quietly erupting throughout the auditorium as the correct spelling of each word was put on a screen after the 15-second time limit was up.

“These are students that are academically inclined and this is a great opportunity for them to be recognized for that,” said Debbie Puente, educational services coordinator for the Santa Cruz County Office of Education. “Kids in sports have so many opportunities to be in competitions, and this is a great opportunity in that vein for students who excel academically.”

Patricia Hernandez, whose son, Del Mar Elementary fourth-grader George Mendoza, competed, said he first became interested in being in the competition after watching one on television last year.

“He really liked what he saw,” Hernandez said. “He was always telling me that he was a good speller and that one day he was going to be in a spelling competition.”

The students had to spell 50-60 words chosen by Spell Masters Mardi Browning of the Santa Cruz Sentinel and Michael McCawley, associated director of admissions at UCSC.

“They are always on the lookout for words,” Puente said, “not everyday words, but words that are used often and are high level. And it’s not something you can study for. Some students are just gifted spellers and understand word origin.”

For the fourth through sixth-graders, words such as tortoise, appoint, bilingual, jamboree, and calligraphy were given. The seventh- through ninth-graders tackled words like nonchalant, capricious, chauffeur and kinesiology.

Branciforte Middle School seventh-grader Hallie Brown, who placed 10th in the senior level, said some words were harder than others for her.

“I read a lot and I do well in school,” she said. “But here, they have a lot of words I’ve never heard of. I got a lot of them right though. I’m pretty proud of myself.”

Branciforte eighth-grader Alexis Lugo said that although he wasn’t doing too well for the day, he was having fun.

“It’s cool learning new words that you’ve never heard before, like stymie—that one was hard,” he said.

Boulder Creek Elementary School fourth-grader Lilly Berlin said this was the first time she had entered a spelling competition and did so on the recommendation of her teacher.

“She said I was one of the best spellers so I decided to enter,” Lilly said. “I was sort of nervous. Some of the words were kind of hard and some were kind of easy.”

The top two spellers in each division will advance to the regional competition. The winners at regionals will advance to the state championship.

Vrendan Aseremo, a fourth-grader from Aptos' Mar Vista Elementary School, placed first in the Junior division. Nora Griffith, a Santa Cruz Mission Hill Middle School sixth-grader, placed second.

In the Senior division, Ocean Grove Charter seventh-grader, Andrew Miller, placed first. Kai Tamkun, a ninth-grader at Santa Cruz's Georgiana Bruce Kirby Prep placed second.

For a list of the top 10 placers in each division, visit the SCCOE website.