Technically, an Emporia youngster won Tuesday’s Lyon County Spelling Bee, but the North Lyon County school district gets to claim the victory.
Alex Larson, 13, whose mailing address is Emporia, lives in the Americus district and is an eighth-grader at Americus School. He has represented his school in the spelling bee three of the past four years, and was alternate in the fourth year. He finished third in the county spelling bee last year.
Alex, son of Greg and Gwen Larson, was one of 45 top spellers representing 15 schools in the county. Three youngsters — Alex, Joe Vaughan of Neosho Rapids Junior High School and Andy Renteria of Lowther South Intermediate School — were the only contestants remaining as Round 11 ended.
Andy dropped out in Round 12, and Joe misspelled “relinquish” to give Alex the opportunity to win the bee.
Throughout the contest, students who misspelled words left the stage and returned to the audience. When only two students were remaining, the rules changed. If a contestant misspelled a word, the other contestant had the opportunity to spell it. If the spelling was correct, that contestant also had to spell another word to garner a win. If the second speller missed the word, both spellers would have been back on equal footing to begin another round.
Alex avoided that situation by correctly spelling both “relinquish” and a second word, “orphanage.”
The spelling bee had begun with a solo performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” by Emporia High School senior Charlie Roemer. Contestants went through a practice round before the contest began in earnest. A few spellers went out on the first round, on “certain,” “flesh,” “nostril,” and “syrup.”
Rounds 2 and 3 caused more spellers to retire and by Round 4, fewer than half of the original 45 remained.
One of the younger spellers busied himself between rounds by slipping his arms in and out of his dress shirt and dangling and dipping the sleeves until his turn came around again. Then he’d step to center stage, grab the microphone and begin spelling. He continued, confidently and correctly, until dropping out in Round 6 on the word “audition.”
The eventual winner said that he’d studied more for previous bees than he had for this one. Alex Larson has represented his school in the county bee three years out of four, and that fourth year, he was an alternate. This year was his last opportunity to uphold a family tradition: His mother, Gwen Larson, the managing editor of The Gazette, was the Osage County spelling bee winner in 1978.
“I didn’t study quite as much as last year because I was pretty confident I would do well,” said Alex, who wore a Baltimore Colts’ No. 18 Peyton Manning jersey for good luck.
He plans to study harder for the state spelling bee, which will be March 24 in Topeka.
“My parents will make me,” Alex said.
Judges for the spelling bee were Carolyn Turney, a retired educator and counselor; Nickie Edwards, Reading School; and Becky Clopton, North Lyon County curriculum coordinator. Pronouncing the words was Deanne Korsak of the Flint Hills Special Education Cooperative at Emporia High School. Amy McAnarney, principal of Lowther South Intermediate School, was hostess for the event.
Jill Vincent and the Food Service staff provided refreshments, Riverside Gardens supplied flowers, and Richard Herrera and Ted Brickley set up the auditorium and stage for the bee.