BEE NOTES

BEE NOTES
Another word, please
In the first round, the tension was high, the room silent and the words -- well, they were darn hard. When Ra'sheeda Donaldson approached the microphone, 38 of the previous 59 first-round spellers had missed their words and were eliminated. When pronouncer Dr. Fred Owen gave Ra'sheeda her word -- turpitude -- a grimace crossed her face and the audience groaned. "Could I have another word?" she asked, sparking a roar of laughter and applause from the 800 or so spectators. Obviously, rules don't allow that, but Ra'sheeda spelled the word correctly anyway. A pupil at the Choffin School for the Gifted in Youngstown, Ra'sheeda was eliminated the next round when she misspelled mediocre.Aaron Ondrey of South Range Elementary School took the first seat in the front row of the contest. "I didn't want to sit here, but they told me," he said, motioning to his parents. "I just wanted to get it over with." He misspelled impromptu to start the spelling bee and was promptly eliminated.
Parents submitted official challenges of the pronunciations of four words: kudos, diphtheria, pharynx and schism. The judges upheld the pronunciations of each.Shane McGee was a late substitution for Lincoln Elementary School in Niles. Lincoln's spelling champ, Zachary Russell, couldn't attend the competition, so McGee substituted and did well, surviving the first three rounds.Brandon Johnson, featured in a Vindicator story last Sunday, correctly spelled plateau, debut and zephyr and was among only nine spellers to advance to the fourth round. He misspelled proliferate and was eliminated. Eight years ago, when Johnson was 5, he suffered seven skull fractures in a car accident, underwent numerous surgeries and lost the vision in his left eye.