If experience counts, Hirsh Sandesara could be in the thick of the hunt for the national spelling bee championship in May.
The 13-year-old 8th grader from Maple Middle School in Northbrook qualified Thursday for a return visit to Washington, D.C., on May 27 and 28 by once again winning the Chicago Tribune’s annual suburban spelling bee. Last year he was fifth among the 240 spellers nationally, and three of the four ahead of him are no longer eligible because they graduated from elementary school.
Earlier in the day, Sheila Cody, 14, an 8th grader at Edison Regional Gifted Center, won the Tribune’s city spelling bee. She also will go to the national contest.
This was the fifth time Hirsh came to the suburban bee, which includes winners from eight Chicago-area counties. He has been a regional champ every year since age 9, when he was in 4th grade.
But, with three youngsters left at the beginning of the 15th round, he almost got knocked out after incorrectly spelling “sedum” as “cetum.” Either Meena Babu of St. Gerald’s Elementary School in Oak Lawn or Colleen Kaul of Locust Elementary School in Marengo could have won.
Meena misspelled “chiropody” as “chiropady.” Colleen, who spelled her 15th-round word right, erred on “epithalamium”–the extra, title-clinching word she needed to spell correctly to win. Her response was “epythalamium,” allowing the contest to continue.
For the next round, Colleen was given “Sisyphean.” She was eliminated for her incorrect spelling, “Sysiaphen.”
Hirsh was on target with “Chihuahua,” and so was Meena on “gigabyte.” Hirsh countered on “chloroform”–but Meena fell on “bagatelle,” omitting the “le” at the end. Hirsh needed one more correct word to win, and he scored with “kaleidoscope.”
In the city spelling bee, Sheila won on “facile” in the 16th round after a head-to-head four-round battle with Vinh Tran of Bell Elementary School. He tripped up on “disseminate,” making it “dissiminate.”
The Edison girl had to spell the next two words to win. “Blitzkrieg” was easy because she used the word in a 200-page novel she finished this month about the adventures of a girl who ran away from home. “Facile” was, well, easy.
Earlier in the contest, Sheila was on target with words such as “encomiastic” and “plangent.” Among Hirsh’s challenges were “apoplectic” and “physiognomy.”
The last two years, Sheila had been runner-up to Beth Dorman, a home-schooled girl who has finished 8th grade and is no longer eligible.
Nineteen pupils were in the city bee, spelling words such as “electroencephalograph,” “heterotrichosis,” “pneumothorax” and “circumnambulate.” They were stumped on, among others, “chevelure,” “metachrosis,” “bonhomous” and “urticant.”
Suburban kids knew “oxydactyl,” “quatrefoil,” “pediculosis” and “neoprene,” but not “zymoscope,” “catenulate,” “drepaniform” or “vacillatory.”
Hirsh and Sheila, along with their parents, will receive paid trips to Washington for the national spelling bee. They also get computers and encyclopedias.
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MORE ON THE INTERNET: Find audio of Thursday’s spelling bee at chicago.digitalcity.com/go/spell a
