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Vidale rallies to win St. Christine spelling bee
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .At the Vindicator Regional Spelling Bee on March 17, seventh-grade champion speller Ciel Vidale (right) will represent St. Christine School. Fourth-grade runner up Caitlyn Sapp (left) will be the back-up participant for the school.
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .St. Christine student Anson Hankey conquered the word "cabinet" letter by letter during an early round of the school's Jan. 18 Spelling Bee.
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .St. Christine student Elizabeth Vannetti used her arm to spell out a particularly tough word during the school's Jan. 18 Spelling Bee.
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .Speller Jack Keffler showed great focus during a late round of the St. Christine Spelling Bee.
By SARAH FOOR
St. Christine seventh-grader Ciel Vidale used a lot of word knowledge and a little bit of luck, to win the school’s spelling bee and advance to the Vindicator Regional Spelling Bee on March 17.
Vidale was one of many St. Christine fourth through eighth-graders who gathered in Guttman Hall on Jan. 18 to vie for the title of spelling bee champion.
In round 12, Vidale caught a break as she misheard the word “larceny” and misspelled it. After the mistake, bee officials realized she had misheard the word and gave another chance to spell it. This time, neither her ears and mouth failed her and she advanced.
Vidale moved on to the final round where she faced off against fourth-grader Caitlyn Sapp. After two rounds of back and forth between the final two, Vidale corrected the spelling of Sapp’s missed word “hurriedly,” and spelled “carpenter” correctly to win the bee.
“I’m glad that I misheard the word — I would have spelled larceny with an ‘s’ instead of ‘c.’ The bee is about studying, but also some luck, and I was lucky to get words I know after my comeback,” Vidale admitted.
The bee also featured siblings Frank, Adriana and Elizabeth Vennetti all participating in the event. For the other spellers, an encouraging group of parents and fellow students filled the hall to support the competitors.
The bee started with a round of four letter words like cram, file, rake and mess. The second round moved to compound words like ballroom, grapevine, homework and bagpipe. Word choice didn’t manage to stump any spellers until the sixth round, where words like eyelet, wriggle, prevail and kindergarten managed to take out more competitors.