Grandville Middle School: Rebecca Tran wins KISD Spelling Bee

By Todd Chance, M Live

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Spelling a word correctly isn’t enough to win a spelling bee anymore.

Rebecca Tran of Grandville Middle School competes in the Greater Grand Rapids Spelling Bee Finals at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Mich. Tuesday, March 11, 2014. The winner will advance to compete in the 2014 Scripps National Spelling Bee held in Washington D.C. beginning May 25, 2014. (Andrew Kuhn | MLive.com)

The 37th Annual Greater Grand Rapids Spelling Bee was held at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum on Tuesday, March 11. The bee showcased the talents of 22 of the area’s regional champions as they competed for the top spot and the honor of representing the area at the 2014 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

This year’s winner is Rebecca Tran, 12, a seventh-grader at Grandville Middle School, who won by correctly spelling the final words “bhalu” and “vorlage” and edging out Monica Whalen, of North End Home School, who took second place.

Tran and Whalen went eight rounds of head-to-head spelling before the word “Weimaraner” tripped Whalen up as she reversed the “i” and the “e.”

Tran then correctly spelled bhalu (from Hindi, a common bear of India). “Vorlage,” from German, the position of a skier leaning forward from the ankles usually without lifting the heels from the skis, was Tran’s champion word.

Tran receives an expenses-paid trip to the 2014 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., a copy of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, the Samuel Louis Sugarman Award and a one-year membership to Britannica Online.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee will be held at the end of May.

2014 Greater Grand Rapids Spelling Bee Finals at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum
 
New to this year’s bee was the “Vocabulary Round.” Every fifth round, the competitors were given a word and asked for the definition instead of the proper spelling. Each word could be spelled for them and they were given two choices as to the correct definition.

The addition of vocabulary rounds is intended to test the spellers’ understanding and proper usage of the words they are given to study. Students were eliminated with an incorrect answer.

Read the full story by Todd Chance from M Live.