Editor’s note: After winning the Ferguson-Florissant district-wide spelling bee for the second straight year, Jadzia reached the finals of the 2017 Post-Dispatch Spelling Bee. Here’s what she had to say about it.
Winning my school bee wasn’t too hard because there were only five contestants! My real challenge started with the district bee. Although not required to move on to the Post-Dispatch bee, it puts in a good bit of practice for me. After a bit of challenge from another student, I won the district bee for my second time in a row.
After that came the regional semifinals, a written bee. I successfully managed to spell 19/20 (or 24/25) out of the words and move on to the finals.
I was very nervous about getting so far, but the fact that I was there and that I had a chance to move on was quite astounding! I did my best. I had studied lists of words that were used for the first several rounds, but beginning with the fifth round, the words were taken from a giant dictionary and the bee got increasingly difficult. I managed to survive to the 6th round, before losing on the word “dromond.”
It was a great experience and I hope to be back in 2018!
Jadzia’s words (in order):
- incorruptible
- staccato
- virgule
- anschluss
- minatory
- dromond
