Local girl wins state spelling bee

Jefferson Elementary fifth grader Clara Wicoff won the Sunflower State spelling bee Saturday in Great Bend.
Wicoff bested 85 other challengers to grab the state title, and a chance at national fame.
Wicoff toppled the competition in the ninth round with solecism, a word, it’s safe to say, that is not in everyday parlance
Saturday’s bee went quickly, she said, until the second place winner was to be determined. After Wicoff beat the three remaining contestants for first, they battled it out “for quite a while” she said, to determine who would take second place.
That honor went to Danielle Routh, an eighth grader from Augusta, representing Butler County.
Third place was shared by Evan Newlin, a sixth grader from Winfield in Cowley County, and Jakob Eck, a sixth grader from Wichita in Sedgwick County.
Along with the champion title, Wicoff received a Dell laptop computer, $300 in savings bonds, a one-year subscription to the Encyclopedia Brittanica online, a gift certificate to Amazon.com, “A really big trophy” and Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, the official dictionary used at spelling bees, Wicoff said.
Now, “I keep studying until May 24, and then I go to DC for a week.”
The Great Bend Tribune, sponsor of the state bee, will send Wicoff and her mom to Washington DC for the week-long national Scripps Spelling Bee the last week of May.
“I’m a little bit nervous,” Wicoff said. Between 250 and 290 contestants will compete in the national bee, and the contest runs three days, Wicoff said.
Monday is a barbecue, she said. “You just get to know the other people.”
All contestants take a written test Tuesday, followed by two verbal contests Wednesday. Winners of those three contests are chosen based on a point system, with the top 50 competing in Thursday’s semi-finals and finals spelling bee. Friday is for sight-seeing and a closing ceremony, Wicoff said.
“A lot of kids have been there four or five times,” WIcoff said of her competition. “But I’ve also seen the words they’ve used in past sessions,” she said. “They weren’t really hard.”
“She’s very motivated,” Clara’s father Joel said of his daughter.
She will keep up with her two-hours a night spelling habit, but this week, she said, “I’m taking spring break off.”