Sometimes getting through the semi-finals of a competition is harder than what it takes to win. The same can be said for this year’s Oakland Schools Scripps Regional Spelling Bee.
In the ninth round, eighth grader Sanvi Mandvekar from Larson Middle School in Troy correctly spelled “ordanance,” military supplies including weapons, ammunition – to win the county’s spelling crown over 80 other competitors.
Jovi Gill, an eighth grader from Detroit Country Day Middle School, finished second.
In the previous round Mandvekar correctly spelled “numismatist,” the word for a specialist, researcher, or well-informed collector of coins.
She came in sixth place last year and worked on her main weakness coming into this year’s competition at Oakland University.
“Last year, I did not take my time and breathe when I got on stage. I got stage fright,” she said. “This year when I went to eighth grade I took some leadership classes and I felt more comfortable on stage and was able to think patiently and I think that really helped me. I was still really scared, but I was able to manage my emotions.”
Everlee Chmielewski spells out a word for pronouncer Andrea Zellner and the judges.Photo by Matt Fahr
It only took three rounds to shrink the field from 80 to eight. Words such as “sesquipedalian,” containing many syllables, narrowed the field from 21 to eight in the third round.
Mandvekar admitted she was not familiar with the word “numismatist” before she was asked to spell it, but explained her process.
“I didn’t know the coin collection word, but the ending and the beginning of the word was kind of familiar to me, like ‘nu’ is sometimes related to money and I took that and sounded out the word and it really helped,” Mandvekar said. “A few letters were guesses, but I just put it together.”
Eighth grader Ava Omans, from John D. Pierce Middle School in Waterford, was one of several students knocked out in the third round of the bee.Photo by Matt Fahr
Her parents, Vishal and Radhika, helped her prepare by reading words from a study list provided by Scripps.
“There were plenty of words on that list that I could not pronounce, but we worked on it together and sounded things out and helped as much as we could,” said Vishal, her father. “The first word she spelled today was ‘breathtaking’ and that is how the whole day was watching her win.”
In May, she will represent Oakland County in the 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. and said she will be preparing differently for that competition.
“This was a lot of memorization and I noticed patterns and that helped me, so I am going to leave memorizing aside and I am going to try and understand why words are spelled the way they are and prepare that way,” said Mandvekar.
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Source: American Military News