Boardman speller reaches round 3 of national bee

By JUSTIN DENNIS

jdennis@vindy.com

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.

The lobby of the Gaylord National Resort is “electric,” said William Slipkovich, with pre-teens cramming vocabulary and using impromptu spelling quizzes to practice for the real thing: the 92nd annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, now in round three.

Slipkovich’s 12-year-old son Santino, a Boardman Center sixth-grader, remains a contender for bee finalist after properly spelling “pagoda” during the bee’s second preliminary round Tuesday.

He’ll take the stage again today to spell one more word. If he’s correct, and earns one of the top 50 scores on a multiple-choice spelling test he took Monday — to be revealed today — he’ll advance to the final rounds, which will be telecast on ESPN starting Thursday.

The Gaylord is running high security, with metal detectors outside the competition room, William said. Competitors could be seen milling around the lobby with their parents, practicing for their turn at the mic, he said. NBC News even mic’d Santino up for a profile interview Wednesday.

Santino said Tuesday he felt “confident” and continued to stay cool about it all. He’s really just enjoying being on vacation with his family, exploring Washington, D.C.

Instead of studying, they visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in the capital and all the presidential monuments. Baltimore’s harbor also offers some fine seafood restaurants, which are the Slipkovich kids’ favorite, William said. They tried oysters for the first time.

“We just go with the flow with him,” he said. “We don’t force the kids into anything.

“The experience is so much different than what I thought it would be. I didn’t know it was this big of a deal,” he said.

Nearly 50 grade-schoolers were knocked out of the bee for misspelling during Wednesday’s second round — including two from Ohio — some after hours of waiting for their turn at the mic. The second round lasted more than eight hours, according to Scripps.

Ohio competitors correctly spelled words such as “pilchard,” “idiochromatic,” “kittiwake,” and “materfamilias.”

For Santino, “pagoda” was an “easy word,” William said.

“I just really have a passion for spelling, I guess. And it’s cool to be up on stage with other people like that,” Santino said.

He did prepare, however, with the list of potential bee words sent along by Scripps prior to the competition. In his spare time, he likes to read chapter books and noted Cornelia Funke, author of the young-adult fantasy novel series “Inkheart.”

The about 500 remaining contestants are vying for a total $52,500 in cash, reference libraries from Merriam-Webster and Encyclopedia Britannica and family trips for talk show appearances in New York City and Hollywood.

So no pressure, Santino.

At least, after spelling his first word on-stage, he felt “pretty cool,” he said.