Xu wins county spelling bee

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Both winner Alan Xu and runner-up Sophia Valdez had reason to smile at the end of a well-done duel in the 2008 Kern County Spelling Bee.

Alan Xu, an 8th-grader at Earl Warren Junior High in Bakersfield and son of Chinese immigrants, correctly spelled "martyr" in the Championship Round to win the 30th annual Kern County Spelling Bee held at University Square in Bakersfield on Feb. 7. Xu outlasted Sophia Valdez, a 6th-grader at Ollivier Middle School in Bakersfield, to win. Xu correctly spelled "utterance" and then Valdez missed on "emblazon." Xu won the round but had to correctly spell "martyr" to win the competition.

"Waiting for the last word, I thought to myself, 'it better be easy,'" Xu said. "When the pronouncer said 'martyr,' at first I didn't think I knew it, but then I remembered I had seen it before. So I formed the letters in my head and spelled it. This was a really great competition -- much harder than what I went through in regionals. Everyone was a really good speller. I feel very, very lucky to have won."

Valdez, who, ironically, also finished second last year as a fifth-grader, hung with Xu through every word, until the end. At one point during the Championship Round, with just three spellers remaining -- Xu, Valdez and Heidi Yi -- Xu misspelled "boniform," Valdez spelled "imparlance" correctly and third place finisher Heidi Yi failed on "rivulet." If Valdez had spelled the next word, "macron," correctly, she would have been the Spelling Bee champion. Macron is "a diacritical mark over a vowel indicating a long sound or phonetic value in pronunciation, as (ā) in the word make."

"When I got that word, I felt confused," Valdez said. "I am disappointed. Hopefully, I'll be able to make it back to the finals again next year."

Xu overcame the challenge of 16 other 4th-8th grade spellers, the best from a pool of approximately 50,000 students in Kern County. Prior to the start of the competition, Teresa Twisselman, the event coordinator for the Kern County Superintendent of Schools, sought to ease the fears and anxiety of the young spellers by relating the story of her own fifth place finish in the Bee 30 years ago.

"Believe me, it is much easier to spell when you are in the audience than it is up here on the stage in front of the audience," Twisselman told them. "There is only going to be one winner, but I want you to remember all the words you spelled correctly, and the words you had to spell down the road to get you where you are tonight. I hope you will see how it connects you to the English language and all that you will study in school. If you do, it will help you in the future."

Xu's father, Xueyu Xu, a physical therapist, who migrated to the United States from China with his wife, Lan Jiang, a medical technician, was very proud of his son's accomplishment.

"Honestly, we couldn't help him because our English isn't that good," Xueyu said. "I have to give Alan all the credit. He worked so hard on his own. And, I also want to thank his teachers, the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District and the Kern County Superintendent of Schools who made all this possible."

Alan Xu earned a trip to Washington, D.C., by winning, where he will represent the county at the 80th Scripps National Spelling Bee on May 29-30. He received round trip airline tickets for two to the competition and $300 from The Bakersfield Californian. He was also presented with an Unabridged Webster's Third New International Dictionary, the Samuel Louis Sugarman Award -- which is a $100 U.S. Savings Bond --and a one year subscription to Encyclopedia Britannica Online Student Edition.

First through third place finalists were awarded trophies, and all received Russo's Books gift certificates from the Kern Reading Association. McDonald's Golden Empire Co-op provided gift bags with an assortment of other surprises.

2008 Kern County Spelling Bee results

1st -- Alan Xu, 8th grade, Warren Jr. High School

2nd -- Sophia Valdez, 6th grade, Ollivier Middle School

3rd -- Heidi Yi, 8th grade, Murray Middle School (Ridgecrest)

4th -- Manoshree Patel, 4th grade, Reagan School

5th -- Nathan Soland, 4th grade, Downtown Elementary School

6th -- Sabrina Sanders, 6th grade, Rio Bravo-Greeley Middle School

7th (tie) -- Justin Alejo, 4th grade, Thorner School

7th (tie) -- Gracie Perez, 6th grade, Stiern Middle School

7th (tie) -- Shaquille Foronda, 6th grade, La Viña Middle School (Delano)

7th (tie) -- Oslijaem Lopez, 6th grade, Voorhies School

8th -- Antonio Ochoa, 8th grade, Mountain View Middle School (Mojave)

9th (tie) -- Krista Antonio, 4th grade, Branch Elementary School (Edwards AFB)

9th (tie) -- Dalton Hoover, 7th grade, Wallace Middle School (Lake Isabella)

10th -- Katelyn Matejka, 5th grade, Bimat Elementary School

11th (tie) -- Carolina Espinosa, 5th grade, Buttonwillow Elementary School (Buttonwillow)

11th (tie) -- Amu Sahoo, 5th grade, St. John's Lutheran School

11th (tie) -- Ernesto Prado, 7th grade, Thomas Middle School (Lost Hills)

The Kern County Superintendent of Schools, The Bakersfield Californian, E. W. Scripps Company, the Kern Reading Association and McDonald's Golden Empire Co-op sponsored the competition.


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