Future spelling bee contestants take note – having a voracious appetite for reading could give you the winning edge.
Alexandra Pantos, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Boonsboro Middle School, won The Gazette’s First Frederick County Spelling Bee Friday at the C. Burr Artz Public Library in Frederick after spelling ‘‘altruism” correctly.
Twenty-five students, representing every region in the county, participated in Friday’s final bee, sponsored by The Gazette, Sandy Spring Bank and Frederick County Public Libraries.
The children, ages 9 to 14, advanced to the bee after they competed in elimination rounds at Frederick, Urbana and Emmitsburg branch libraries in late February.
For winning the final competition, Sandy Spring Bank awarded the Knoxville teen with a $1,000 savings bond and a trophy. Alexandra’s name will also be engraved on a perpetual plaque to be displayed inside the C. Burr Artz library.
Urbana Middle School sixth-grader Yasas Santharam, 11, placed second in the bee and won a $500 savings bond, also from Sandy Spring Bank.
Clutching her trophy after the spelling bee, Alexandra said she doesn’t memorize words before competing, but reads a book every one or two days. Fiction books and authors Lois Lowry and J.K. Rowling are some of her favorites, she said.
‘‘If you’re memorizing, maybe you’re not quite as into it, or interested,” Alexandra noted.
Alexandra’s mother, Lauri, noted, ‘‘She always has a book in her hand.” Pantos said that her daughter is quick at answering ‘‘Jeopardy” questions and ‘‘reads anything that has a word.”
Alexandra’s younger sister, Stef, 11, a sixth-grader at Boonsboro Middle School, also competed in the final bee.
Alexandra – who has won her school’s spelling bee three years in a row – said she planned to compete in the Washington County Spelling Bee on Sunday.
Caroline O’Connell, library associate at the Brunswick branch library, remembered Alexandra’s self-assuredness at the Feb. 24 elimination bee in Urbana, which she also won.
‘‘She seemed very comfortable and very confident,” O’Connell said.
Alexandra is a regular at the library’s Teen Book Club and her family checks out stacks of books each time they visit, O’Connell added. ‘‘We know them as very big readers,” she said.
Santharam Gurumani and Usha Santharam, parents of second-place winner Yasas, said they also make reading a priority in their Urbana home.
Yasas, a fan of author Cornelia Funke, said she used word games and spelling kits to help prepare for the final bee.
‘‘It sort of got fun going up there and spelling words,” she said after the competition.
More than 100 family members and friends crowded into the Community Room inside the C. Burr Artz library to watch their students carefully spell words such as, ‘‘cockatoo,” ‘‘extravaganza,” ‘‘lariat,” ‘‘quinine” and ‘‘piazza.”
Through 11 rounds of competition, parents stood up to snap digital pictures of their children at the microphone or wore anxious expressions as their student spelled a particularly difficult word.
A thumbs-up from a parent or friend in the audience sent silent congratulations to the relieved but smiling spellers. A pat on the back or hug consoled those who were eliminated.
But parents and friends were not the only ones consoling and congratulating students.
At the end of round six, Ryan Brown — a Walkersville Middle School student who was eliminated in an earlier round — extended a handshake to Sarah Abernethy, a seventh-grader at Middletown Middle School, who had just been eliminated. ‘‘Good job, Sarah,” Ryan whispered across the aisle.
