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UPPER FREEHOLD: War of words: Stone Bridge students go 20 rounds in spelling bee

By Joanne Degnan, Staff Writer
   UPPER FREEHOLD — Nothing spells apprehension, a-p-p-r-e-h-e-n-s-i-o-n, like 20 middle school spelling bee contestants fidgeting in their folding chairs beneath the glow of stage lights in a darkened auditorium.
   As the Stone Bridge Middle School’s first Scripps Spelling Bee contest got under way Jan. 13, the tension was palpable. Parents and classmates leaned forward in their seats, hanging on every letter in every word while Principal Mark Guterl listened intently at the judge’s table with a 5-pound dictionary at the ready.
   ”Is that your final answer?” the master of ceremonies, history teacher Chris Scaturo, asked each student in his deep, velvety radio-announcer voice from a lectern at stage left.
   Some contestants used their finger to rewrite the word in the air, or an imaginary tablet, and spelled it aloud again. Others closed their eyes in what looked like an effort to channel divine guidance or, perhaps, Noah Webster. And the confident ones, certain they had spelled their word correctly on the first try, answered affirmatively in strong self-assured voices. Yes, that’s the final answer.
   After Mr. Scaturo had leaned into the microphone to reveal whether the spelling was correct or not, the audience applauded just as warmly for the students departing the stage as for those staying for another round. The crowd had apparently taken Principal Guterl’s remarks at the onset of the event to heart: All 20 contestants were already winners just by virtue of earning a spot in the contest.
   A total of 550 students in the grade 5-8 middle school took the written spelling test that determined the top five spellers in each grade who would compete in the PTA-sponsored spelling bee. The 20 winners met after school with Mr. Scaturo for weeks to study thousands of challenging words, all grouped according to language of origin, in order to make it easier to learn the spelling rules and tips that would make them successful.
   The main event Jan. 13 lasted more than an hour and went 20 rounds before eighth-grader George Veit correctly spelled “ellipse” to win the school championship. George, a voracious reader who says he’s partial to military history books, now advances to the county competition with a goal of eventually making it to the National Scripps Spelling Bee Finals in Washington, D.C., in June.
   For the second-place finisher, eighth-grader Amanda Eider, it proved to be a tough loss. Amanda appeared to have the contest in the bag back in Round 8 when the two other contestants remaining at that point, George and sixth-grader Tommy Dombrowski, both spelled their words incorrectly. Under the Scripps Spelling Bee rules, Amanda, as the last contestant left, had to spell one more word correctly in a “championship round” before she could be declared the winner.
   The championship word was “kanji” (a system of Japanese writing using Chinese characters). Amanda stumbled, and Tommy and George were returned to the stage so that the three-way contest could continue with Round 9.
   By Round 16, it was only the two eighth-graders, Amanda and George, who remained. Amanda spelled “leviathan” correctly, but George flubbed “jingoism,” putting Amanda in position once again to take the championship if she could correctly spell the next championship word: “yeoman.”
   The crowd softly gasped as the word was announced. Amanda asked Mr. Scaturo for the definition of the word and its language of origin. As she pondered her answer, the soft glow of BlackBerrys and iPhones could be spotted around the dark auditorium as spectators tried to look up the word for themselves. Amanda gave it a valiant try, but it was to no avail.
   ”That is incorrect,” Mr. Scaturo said.
   Once again, George climbed the stairs back up to the stage determined to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. His moment of triumph came two rounds later when Amanda stumbled on “chasm” enabling George to win first place by spelling the word “ellipse” correctly in his championship round.
   All of the contestants rejoined George on the stage for the PTA awards ceremony, and each student received a spelling bee medal hanging from a gold and black ribbon that was placed over their heads Olympian style.
   The students who participated in the spelling bee were fifth-graders Grace Klopman, Lauren Cocozello, Kaileigh McLaughlin, Thomas Bethea and Ally Jurgens; sixth-graders Zach Dowbnia, Micayla Reynolds, Tommy Krosnowski, Alaina Stampe and Matt Coiante; seventh-graders Hunter DiCicco, Michael Peters, Jaret Williams, Lindsay Rubenstein and Jillian Germino; and eighth-graders George Veit, Christopher Napoleon, Erika McCormick, Rachel Swope and Amanda Eider.