Lyon County student takes fourth in regional spelling bee
The Capital-Journal
Sunday, March 15, 2009
By Mike Hall
March 14, 2009
Watch for Meredith Foulke, a seventh-grader at Overbrook Attendance Center in Osage County, at the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., May 26-29.
The 13-year-old will be the one writing on her arm. She won the right to be in the national bee by winning The Topeka Capital-Journal’s 56th annual Regional Spelling Bee on Saturday at Washburn Rural Middle School.
She won by correctly spelling “kudzu,” a kind of vine. Throughout the 21 rounds required to separate her from the other 45 contestants, Meredith had a habit of using a finger to write the word given to her invisibly on her arm.
Asked about it after the contest, she explained, “I’m a very visual speller.”
As she was declared the winner, people in an entire row of seats in the auditorium exploded into cheers. Her victory was witnessed by her parents, Gary and Shelley Foulkes, her aunts, sister and two teachers. Second place went to Daniel Jones, of Bethel Christian School in Franklin County. Third was Candace TenEyck, of Mill Creek Valley Junior High School in Wabaunsee County. Fourth place was Meg Detwiler, a student at Lowther North Intermediate School in Lyon County.
The 46 students in the regional contest came from 25 counties of northeast Kansas.
Each round of spelling knocked out a few contestants who misspelled a word until the 10th round when the competition became so intense the five remaining spellers spelled their words correctly to go on to the 11th round.
Later, the final three spellers went five rounds with no one being knocked out. The words became increasing difficult as the rounds advanced. The students were being asked to spell such words as cruller (a pastry), cedilla (a French punctuation mark) and illuminati (a group of intellectuals).
Meredith said she prepared for the bee by studying the words in a spelling list supplied by the Scripps National Spelling Bee organization.
The bee pronouncer was Rick Douglas. Judges were Darcy Kraus, Title I reading with Topeka Unified School District 501, Scott Toland, the 2001 and 2002 state bee champion; and Christy Underwood, of the Salina Journal.
Mike Hall can be reached at (785) 295-1209 or mike.hall@cjonline.com.