Wednesday, May 27, 2009
By Harold Gwin
The Vindicator’s champion continues to use his free time to prepare for the live rounds.
YOUNGSTOWN — Round One is finished, but there’s no time to relax.
Rounds Two and Three of the Scripps National Spelling Bee begin at 8 a.m. today.
John Umble of Poland, an eighth-grader from Willow Creek Learning Center, is representing The Vindicator at the event in Washington, D.C. He won the newspaper’s 2009 Regional Spelling Bee, giving him the opportunity to compete against 292 other top spellers from around the globe at the national event.
“He feels real good about the computer round,” said his father, Jim Umble, referring to the round-one competition in which spellers were given 50 words to spell on a computer. Only 25 of those words actually count for the competition, but the spellers didn’t know which of the words were part of the test. John completed the test around 10 a.m. Tuesday.
Rounds Two and Three are live rounds on a stage. Round Two begins at 8 a.m. with Round Three starting about 1:15 p.m.
Spellers will be given a combined score for the first three rounds.
Only 50 spellers will advance to semifinal competition, and that group will be announced immediately following the completion of Round Three.
The semifinals will begin at 10 a.m. Thursday and the finals are set for 8 p.m. that day.
“John is in good spirits and just working as hard as can be,” his father said.
He’s spent most of his free time continuing to study, poring over word lists in preparation for the live rounds, Jim Umble said.
“We’re real proud of him. He’s working real, real hard,” Jim said.
All is going well. The trip was great and the icebreaker picnic hosted by Scripps on Monday was very enjoyable, the elder Umble said.
This isn’t John‘s first trip to the main event.
He won The Vindicator Bee in 2007 as well but didn’t advance beyond the preliminaries in Washington.
He said before leaving for Washington this time that it seemed the kids who were at the national bee for a second time had an advantage in terms of knowing what types of words to expect. He has some national experience now and knows what to expect, he said.
It won’t be all hard work.
John said he hopes to get some touring done before returning to Youngstown. The National Air and Space Museum and a return visit to the National Zoo are on his list, he said.
The 293 spellers in this year’s event comprise the largest field in Scripps’ history.
It breaks down to 150 boys and 143 girls, all ranging in age from 9 to 15.
Thirty of them have at least one relative who has competed in the national bee before, and four of them are back for the fourth time.
gwin@vindy.com