National bee finishes early for Valley spelling champ

By Harold Gwin

The best part of the bee was meeting the other competitors, Hannah said.

YOUNGSTOWN — “It’s been a great experience. I’m just so glad I got to come here and meet the other spellers and be a part of the national spelling bee. It’s just been great.”

With those words, Hannah Stang Gerdes, 14, of Hubbard, ended her competition in the Scripps National Spelling Bee this week in Washington, D.C.

Hannah didn’t advance to the quarterfinals Thursday, having been eliminated in the preliminary rounds.

The daughter of Bob and Tena Gerdes spelled 15 of 25 words correctly in round one in the written portion of the preliminaries but missed her on-stage word, movimento, spelling it m-o-v-a-m-e-n-t-o. The word, derived from Italian, means movement.

“I don’t think I’ve heard of it before,” Hannah said.

Her total preliminary score was 15, below the 20-point cutoff tally to advance to the next level.

“It’s just a great experience to be here and see what goes on,” said her father.

Hannah is The Vindicator’s 2008 Regional Spelling Bee champion, a feat that won her an expense-paid trip to the national event. She and her parents arrived in Washington on Monday, but her mother couldn’t stay all week.

An older daughter, Abby, is graduating from Ursuline High School on Saturday. Tena Gerdes came back to town Wednesday to help prepare for that event.

Hannah, speaking by telephone from Washington, said she and her father will stay through the end of the bee tonight but then rent a car and drive back to the Mahoning Valley overnight to be here in time for Abby’s graduation.

The best part of being at the national bee was meeting the other competitors, Hannah said, noting that she joined a small study group of spellers in Washington to continue preparing for the event.

“It’s just been a lot of fun,” she said, recounting the huge picnic held Tuesday for all of the competitors and their families and her visit to an interactive science museum Wednesday.

She met some young people who have been to the national bee before — two have been there five times — and was impressed by their hard work.

“People put in a lot of hours,” she said.

Hannah put in a lot of time herself, working about three hours a day during the final weeks leading up to the bee.

She said she would encourage anyone with an interest in words to take the opportunity to participate in spelling bees.

“I’ve learned so many things I didn’t know in such a short time,” she said, adding that that knowledge will help her later in school and in life.

She plans to enroll as a freshman this fall at Ursuline High School.

Meanwhile, 10-year-old Veronica Penny, a fourth-grader from Hamilton, Ontario, buried her face in her hands each of the four times she correctly spelled a word, advancing with 44 other competitors to today’s semifinals, which will air live on ESPN.

“It helps me think better,” she said of her microphone ritual.

Veronica is one of seven Canadians remaining in the spelling contest, which began with 288 competitors — the bee’s largest class ever.

No Canadian has ever won the bee, which still retains “national” in its title even though it has allowed international competitors from English-speaking countries since the 1970s.

gwin@vindy.com

XScripps Howard News Service contributed to this report.