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Former Vindicator spelling bee contestants keep it in the f-a-m-i-l-y
By Denise Dick
Berlin center
Spelling just comes naturally to Taylor Garner, one of the 66 contestants in the 79th annual Vindicator Regional Spelling Bee.
It’s in her genes.
Taylor’s parents, Nancy and Sean Garner, competed in the bee when they were children. A 1978 Vindicator photograph shows the pair seated next to each other, he representing North Jackson Elementary and she, Harding Elementary in Youngstown.
“I remember him,” said Nancy Garner, formerly Nancy Burchfield. “I thought his name was weird. I was a phonetic speller, and I thought S-e-a-n, like it was ‘seen.’ He said he remembered my long socks.”
The family went online to find the Scripps list of words for Taylor to study for the big day.
The bee kicks off at 9 a.m. Saturday in the Chestnut Room of Kilcawley Center at Youngstown State University.
The grand champion of the Vindicator Regional Spelling Bee will represent the Mahoning Valley at the 85th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee on May 27 through June 1 in Washington, D.C., one of about 270 spellers from across the country. The Vindicator will pay for transportation, hotel accommodations and other expenses for the grand champion and his or her adult escort.
While in the nation’s capital, spellers will tour historic sites and participate in other activities planned by Scripps National Spelling Bee officials.
Taylor, 11, a fifth-grader at Western Reserve Elementary, is ready for the big day and beyond.
“I really want to win,” she said. “I want to go to Washington.”
There’s no special strategy she employs.
“I just think it through, and I spell the word,” Taylor said.
Sometimes she asks for it to be used in a sentence.
“It just helps me think of what the word is and what it really means,” she said.
This marks her first entry into the regional bee after winning her school’s contest. She and her good friend went back and forth, spelling until Taylor won.
She looks forward to Saturday’s contest.
“I’m pretty excited,” Taylor said.
After the 1978 competition, Sean and Nancy Garner didn’t see each other again until 1995 while country line dancing. They started hanging out, and he asked her out.
The night before their first date, they discovered they’d both competed in the bee as children, and he remembered the photo.
He brought the photo cut from the newspaper on their first date, which was May 7, 1995 — 17 years to the day after the Vindicator photo ran. He proposed three years later, and they married in June 1999.
Nancy is an intervention specialist in Howland, and Sean, who spent 18 years as an engineer, now teaches freshman algebra at Western Reserve High School.
Taylor always has been a good speller, her mother said.
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Nancy Garner said.