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How do you spell winner? Annabelle Day
By Denise Dick
BOARDMAN
For the past two months, Annabelle Day has spent about an hour each night studying vocabulary words, learning the spellings and definitions.
This week, she’ll learn if it pays off.
Annabelle, 12, a seventh-grader at Willow Creek Learning Center, travels to Washington, D.C., to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. In March, she won the 81st Vindicator Regional Spelling Bee at Youngstown State University, beating 50 other spellers from across Mahoning and parts of Trumbull counties.
“I’m nervous and excited,” Annabelle said.
The Vindicator is paying for the trip for Annabelle and a parent.
Her whole family is going, dad, Alan, mom, Dr. Trang and older sister, Tamsin, the runner-up in both the 80th and 79th Vindicator Regional Bees.
Since her March victory, Annabelle has been working hard.
“I’ve been studying vocabulary words,” she said.
Annabelle, of Boardman, writes the word on one side of a note card and the definition on the back. Her father then quizzes her, ensuring she knows both. Father and daughter culled the roughly 1,000 words from those in previous bees.
One of them is waterzooi, a Belgian stew, and Annabelle spells it like a pro.
She estimates she studies about 100 words per night.
Shortly after winning The Vindicator Bee, Annabelle competed in Columbus in the state Geography Bee. She won her school’s competition to move to the state contest and says geography is her favorite subject.
Lynn Rabosky, Willow Creek principal, describes Annabelle as a polite, pleasant young lady.
“She’s very good at memorization,” Rabosky said. “She was very motivated to do well in spelling.”
After the pronouncer gives a student a word to spell, the contestant may ask the word origin, definition and for it to be used in a sentence and Annabelle asks for all three. Knowing the origin helps her have a better idea of how to spell the word because different languages have different rules.
Annabelle likes when she’s asked to spell words of Greek origin particularly because the rules of the language help her know how to spell them.
“The connecting vowel is usually an ‘O’ and the ‘F’ sound is usually spelled ‘PH,’” she said.
Competitors in the Scripps National Bee, who come from all over the country, will begin the week’s activities Monday with a Memorial Day barbecue.
Tuesday starts the preliminary rounds with written tests which continue Wednesday before the announcement of the semifinalists.
Only semifinalists actually compete on the stage. That phase of the competition starts Thursday morning and may be viewed on ESPN2. The finals also will air on ESPN Thursday evening.
Annabelle offers no predictions of how she’ll fare in the big event.
She’s looking to the event though and mostly to “meeting new people.”