Vindy spelling bee champion preps for national competition

By Harold Gwin

The Vindicator’s champion spends about three hours a day studying.

YOUNGSTOWN — Hannah Gerdes said she’s doing all she can to get ready for the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., later this month.

Hannah, 14, daughter of Bob and Tena Gerdes of Hubbard, is The Vindicator’s 75th Regional Spelling bee champion, a title that comes with an expense-paid trip to participate in the national contest.

“I’m studying,” she said, noting that she’s spending between one or two hours each day reviewing Web sites designed for spellers. She also works with her dad one hour each evening, concentrating primarily on learning word origins that may help her spell words with which she is unfamiliar.

It doesn’t seem like too much work, Hannah said, pointing out that she still has time to do her school work, take piano lessons, help teach preschoolers at Church Hill United Methodist Church, run the 1,600-meter event in track and help her mother start a vegetable garden.

Hannah and her parents will travel to Washington May 26 for Bee week activities including preliminary competitions. The quarterfinals will be May 29 with the semifinals and finals May 30.

But mom won’t be able to stay all week. Older daughter Abby is graduating from Ursuline High School on Saturday and Tena Gerdes said she will be back in town at mid-week to help prepare for that event.

“I’m really the coordinator in all of this,” Tena said. “Bob works with her as the teacher.”

A recent family trip involved a five-hour drive home, and Hannah and her father “spelled all the way home,” she said.

Winning the regional bee has benefitted the entire family, Tena Gerdes said. “It’s really been enriching to all of us.”

Hannah has some experience with spelling bees. She’s been in The Vindicator competition four times, finishing second last year behind John Umble before defeating him in a spell-down in this year’s competition.

Her father has some experience as well, having won the city bee in Conneaut, Ohio, when he was a sixth-grader in the early 1970s.

He attributes Hannah’s spelling prowess to her early ability to read, noting that she was reading books before she entered kindergarten.

The national event is a whole new game, Hannah said.

“I know it’s really tough competition. I’m just learning as much as I can, going into it with confidence,” she said.

She and her family have spoken with the Umble family to get a feel for what Bee week is like in an effort to be as prepared as possible.

Going to the national event isn’t all work. Tuesday and Wednesday are set aside for some fun activities. There will be a big picnic on Tuesday, and Hannah said she’s signed up to visit an interactive science center on Wednesday.

She’s been to Washington once before and said she’d also like to revisit some of the memorials there, time permitting.

Hannah, an eighth-grader, is being home-schooled this year but represented St. Patrick School and the Montessori School of the Mahoning Valley in earlier competitions.

Tena Gerdes said they decided to try home school this year because of the schedule flexibility it offers. It enabled Hannah to join her father, an optometrist, on a mission trip with Volunteers Optometric Services to Humanity in Nicaragua in January to provide vision care to people in an underdeveloped area.

gwin@vindy.com