Excerpt from American Bee: The Diversity of Spellers at Nationals

AMERICAN BEE
The National Spelling Bee and the Culture of Word Nerds

The Lives of Five Top Spellers as They Compete for Glory and Fame

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Excerpt: the 2005 Nationals, Washington, D.C. – Who Are the Spellers?

...As parties go, these 273 spellers are likely the most divergent group of people gathered in the nation’s capital this week. Once again this year, the Bee is the definition of diversity.

Nektarios Vasilottos’s parents are from Greece, and the family speaks Greek around the house; Amanda Redhouse is a Navajo Indian who lives on a reservation in Arizona, and her family speaks Navajo around the house. Mehron Price values her Ethiopian heritage, and Dominic Errazo—a huge Monty Python fan who quotes from the movies at odd moments—hails from the Philippines. The names of the spellers read like a trip around the world: Rachel Hernandez, Alyssa Tomaskovic, Truc Viet Ho, Harvest Zhang.

Indeed, this event is America in all its multiethnic glory—if you’re not careful, you can almost hear a distant horn section playing, with a stentorian voice talking about the immigrant experience, its sacrifice, its hope for a better life, and its heartfelt pride in having found a home in a place called America. Jamie Ding’s parents left China after the horror of the Tiananmen Square massacre; they had to buy him an audiocassette as an infant to teach him standard English. Anurag Kashyap’s father competed with thousands of applicants in his native India for an academic post that would enable him to land a job in the United States.

On the other hand, Ben Reinig is a farmer’s son who lives in Harlan, Iowa, and his father—who drove a tractor at age ten—speaks with an earthy twang as he talks about managing the family farm; the Reinigs are as connected to domestic soil as one can be. But the Reinigs’ farm life is far different from that of Seth Martin, who lives in New York City, or Phillip Acevedo, who hails from Chicago, or Christian Medina, who lives in Los Angeles. Some big towns, yes, and some not so big towns. Katie Brown—now in her fourth year at the Bee—lives in Stuart, Florida, and Carlie Gakstatter goes to school in Iron Mountain, Michigan.

But whether the towns are big or small, the dreams tend toward the larger. Marlee Labroo, a twelve-year-old from Quincy, Illinois, wants to go into politics, and Austin Hoke, an eleven-year-old from Anderson, Indiana, wants to design roller coasters. Kasey Leger, fourteen, from Lafayette, Louisiana, helps with the family farm and dreams of being a psychiatrist. Manasa Reddy, twelve, from Steubenville, Ohio—she loves watching professional basketball—wants to be the CEO of a large corporation.

The parents of these young dreamers come from all walks of life. The father of Hong De Sa, from Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, is a truck driver and her mother is a hair stylist. The father of Megan Courtney, from Sedalia, Missouri, is a full-time National Guardsman and her mother is a licensed practical nurse. Emelia Armstead’s father is a hedge fund manager, Arlene Hasbrouck’s mother is a speech pathologist (Arlene has three blue goldfish as pets), and Reed Lawson’s mother is a detective. The father of Sean Hadley—Sean helped create an experiment that will be conducted in the Space Station—is an environmental engineer.

Many of the kids are strivers in several areas, involved in the Geography Bee and Mathcounts as well as spelling. Most take private music lessons and have a crowded schedule of extracurricular activities. Still, they’re actual kids, not achievement machines. Liane Libranda, twelve, from Albany, New York, never misses an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Allison Frankfother, twelve, from Sterling, Illinois, loves to stay up late and listen to music, and really likes to shop with her friends.

The kids go to public school (173), private (38), homeschool (34), parochial (25), and charter school (3). Of the 273 spellers, 143 are eighth-graders, 65 are seventh-graders, 37 are sixth-graders, 23 are fifth-graders, and there are 5 trembling fourth-graders—it takes real courage to compete as a fourth-grader. In recent years, the crowd has been about evenly divided between girls and boys, with typically just a few more girls. This year is an anomaly—perhaps there’s something in the water—with 127 girls and 146 boys.

The Bee group, both the kids and their parents, is a pretty well-scrubbed bunch. There are no Harley Davidson T-shirts, virtually no smokers, the barbecue is alcohol free and no one seems to miss it, and the kids are very light on the piercings—if there was a single boy who wore an earring, I missed him.

There is, let’s face it, a certain nerdiness about being so involved with spelling. These are families who get their kids to bed on time, tend to eat family dinner together, and often choose vacations for their educational value. These are families where one of the parents packs nutritious snacks so that their kids won’t be eating junk food. There are no statistics to prove this, but almost all parents appear to be on their first marriage.

Not that everyone is Ward and June Cleaver. Ginny Butler, a fourteen-year-old from Mount Vernon, Washington, with her black eye shadow, studded leather belt, punk rock T-shirts, and her fondness for professional bull riding contests, is one of those who adds spice to the crowd. One morning her mother is having a quick smoke outside the hotel and sums it up: “My daughter’s not like these other kids—and I like that.”

But whatever the variations in lifestyle, these are parents who take an active role in their kids’ education. Making it to the National Bee is no small achievement, and none of the 273 kids got here by themselves. In the language of contemporary psychology, these are child-centered families.

In some cases, the kids have been nudged—or pushed—to get here. As one mother told me about her son, “He just won the statewide math competition—spelling is a side hobby I make him do.” It’s unlikely, though, that a kid would do all the drill and study required, then stand up and perform under pressure, if he or she didn’t have some kind of enthusiasm for competitive spelling. In fact there’s a rumor this year of a boy whose older brother was a top speller from a prior year and whose parents were grooming him to repeat his older brother’s success. But the boy himself wasn’t interested and so purposely misspelled at the school level to put himself out of competition. It’s an unusual truth: Most of these kids are here because—oddly—they find spelling truly interesting.

That interest alone, however, is not enough. They’ve needed copious support and cheering from parents to arrive here. In many instances a mother or father is the speller’s personal coach, and some parents hire a personal coach. To be sure, behind every speller’s performance onstage is the story of a family who cares deeply about that speller. For all the recognition that the finalists receive, their trophies could as well go to the family members who were quiet during a car trip so Ted could study, or who made sacrifices in their daily schedule so Jenny could fit in some extra word list drill.

And now, those sacrifices having been made, the Bee is almost here. The camcorders are ready, the cameras are loaded. Many of these spellers will be on the ESPN broadcast—the Tivo is set to record. Today is sunshine and Frisbees and kickball, but the anticipation, underneath the spirit of fun, is growing…