Canfield speller sets sights on title

March 16, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

The Vindicator’s 78th Regional Spelling Bee was a battle for the ages between one student from Canfield Village Middle School and one from Willow Creek Learning Center.

This year, the Canfield student, Max Lee, 12, a seventh-grader, who was last year’s runner-up, returns for another shot at the title.

Last year’s winner, Lauren Ritz, moved out of the area and isn’t competing in this year’s contest, which is scheduled today in the Chestnut Room of Kilcawley Center at Youngstown State University.

The 78th Bee lasted 69 rounds and five hours.

Max, the son of Tac Lee and Linglan Liu, says he’s not doing anything special to prepare for this year’s contest, although the fact that he knows what to expect makes it somewhat less nerve-wracking.

“I just study the list,” he said.

It’s a list of words from the Scripps National Spelling Bee, boasting words many people two or three times Max’s age have never heard of and likely couldn’t spell correctly.

Sometimes, Max’s parents help him study the words, reading the word and asking Max to spell it.

“Mostly, he just studies by himself,” his mother said.

This is a month of contests for the young man. On March 10, just a week before the bee, he’s competing in a MathCounts competition in Columbus, his mother said.

Max doesn’t have any special strategy going into his second bee.

“I just think about the word and I try to remember how it’s spelled from when I studied,” he said.

He usually asks for the word’s definition and its origin to try to help him determine the spelling and sometimes he’ll use his finger to write the word onto his palm. That helps him to imagine the spelling.

Max says he enjoys math and participates in a variety of math competitions. He’s also been playing piano competitively for four years.

The winner of the regional bee gets an all-expense paid trip to compete in the Scripps National Bee in Washington, D.C.