Grandhe Wins Spelling Bee

bee031: Grandhe Wins Spelling BeeSiri Grandhe’s facultative chances of repeating as Kern County Spelling Bee champion came down to one word on a rainy February 12 night in Bakersfield. Fifteen other competitors had long been seated leaving just Grandhe and Evan Aguilar in a spell off that had lasted well past forty rounds.

Pronouncer Pat Giles asked Grandhe to spell the word you saw in the first sentence of this story. The word was “facultative,” and it means capable of happening or not happening. It happened for Grandhe, an 8th-grader at Tevis Junior High, and she will represent the county at the 76th National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., May 28-29, just as she did last year.

“The second time winning this event was just as tense,” Grandhe said. “There were not as many rounds as last year (58). So not as many tough words came out of the dictionary instead of the spelling guide. Still, at the end, I didn’t know what words I would get and that made it hard.”

Both Grandhe and Aguilar, a Warren Junior High 7th-grader, had stumbled, failing to spell words correctly down the stretch. But each time neither could follow up the other’s miss with a correctly spelled word of their own. They withstood a capacity audience watching at University Square, cameras clicking and even a man with a loud, chronic cough.

“This was my fourth year of competing,” said Aguilar. “So, I wasn’t really that nervous. I had studied an hour every day for the last month, leading up to this moment.”

The end finally came when Aguilar was unable to spell “tiaris,” and Grandhe correctly spelled “dipetalous.” The rules required Grandhe to spell one more word to claim the championship and that was facultative.

Greenfield Middle School 7th-grader Gabriel Guimte hung with Grandhe and Aguilar through 18 rounds and finished third.

By winning, Grandhe received round trip airline tickets for two to the competition in Washington, D.C.; hotel accommodations and $300 from The Bakersfield Californian; Scripps Howard gift certificate for a Spelling Ace watch; Spelling Ace fanny pack; six assorted t-shirts; Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Edition.; and the Samuel Louis Sugarman $100 series EE U.S. Savings Bond Award.

Aguilar said he will be back to try again next year. As for Grandhe, she is already strategizing for her trip to Washington, D.C.

“I think I might spend the weeks leading up to it going over root words, prefixes and suffixes,” said Grandhe. “I didn’t do much of that last year and still made the fourth round. Some of the competitors I talked with at nationals gave me some good clues that should help me this time.”

The order of finish was: 1st - Siri Grandhe- Tevis Junior High; 2nd - Evan Aguilar- Warren Junior High; 3rd - Gabriel Guimte - Greenfield Middle; 4th - (tie) Kaleigh Tinkle- Stockdale Christian and Josh Tenhet - Norris Middle; 5th - Rachel Simmons - Monroe Middle (Ridgecrest); 6th - Wade Wallace - Valley Oaks Charter; 7th - Nereida Martinez - Buttonwillow Elementary; 8th - Daniella Flores - Thomas Jefferson Middle (Wasco); 9th - Gia Murrillo - Owens Intermediate; 10th - Jason Bauder - Tompkins Elementary (Tehachapi); 11th - (tie) Makayla Richer - Fremont School and Tyler Rosenow - Hort; 12th - (tie) Georgette Gonzales - Wallace Middle (Lake Isabella) and Irma Hernandez - Pioneer Drive; 13th - (tie) Erica Morales - Sunset and Nadine Duguam - Eissler.

The Kern County Superintendent of Schools, The Bakersfield Californian; Scripps-Howard Newspapers; and the Kern Reading Association sponsored the competition.
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