Like a seasoned champ, the contestant had been on this stage before, pumped under the lights, excited by applause and the weight of expectation surging with every passing round – with every ding of the bell.
By the end of the sixth round, it was Josephine Kao hoisting her fists into the air Wednesday, reclaiming her title for the third year in a row, as champion … of the California Central Valley Spelling Bee.
Kao's winning word: "A-P-P-E-T-E-N-C-Y. Appetency," which means a strong ingrained desire, a craving, and for those who watched Wednesday's bee, a fitting description of the 12-year-old wonder student from Roseville.
"I'm in awe," said Stephanie Cassidy, who supervises Kao's home-school studies with the Visions in Education program in San Juan Unified School District. "She just goes above and beyond in everything."
Kao's win automatically advances her – yet again – to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., where she placed 16th last year.
The national spelling bee, scheduled in May, will be broadcast on ESPN, with the final round televised on ABC. Last year, it even pre-empted the popular series "Grey's Anatomy."
At Wednesday's contest at the Scottish Rite Masonic Center, presented by The Sacramento Bee and sponsored by River City Bank, judges sat at a table with a 5-inch-thick Webster's international dictionary, packets of polysyllabic words, beginning with "character," and a bell – the bell – that felled students, one-by-one-by-one before a packed auditorium.
As spelling bee organizer Molly Maloney Evangelisti reminded students before the 25th annual competition, they are all winners, they are all special.
"Opportunities like spelling bees are just stepping stones to future endeavors," she said, after the children were seated in neat rows on stage.
The drive to succeed had taken hold early in Kao, who bested her way past 63 of the region's top spellers, in a competition that tested logic, luck and emotions in a way that sometimes sent disqualified students to a private "speller's room" in tears.
But Megan Dominguez, a sixth-grader from Folsom Hills Elementary walked off stage in the third round without misty eyes. The aspiring author, who's read the Harry Potter series 57 times, had added an extra "h" to the word "chrestomathy," which means a selection of passages to study language.
"I was actually really proud of myself," said Dominguez, who kept a small toy bee, a gift from her mother, clasped tightly in her right hand for good luck. "I hope to take first place next year."
For Sandhya Jetty, Wednesday's bee was her last. The 14-year-old student at Sutter Middle School in Folsom had appeared at the regional spelling event five times and hoped that this time – as an eighth-grader, the last year allowed – she could take top prize.
But near the end, Jetty was sandwiched between Kao and Anvita Mishra, a sixth-grade power speller from Excelsior school in Placer County. Jetty added an extra "e" to the word "nemoral," pertaining to a wood or grove.
"It's all luck on what word you get," Jetty said during a lunch break before her elimination.
And then, after about three tense hours, it was down to Kao and Mishra. Kao correctly spelled "embracery" followed by Mishra's quick "drupaceous," then Kao's "peregrinate." But then, there was a pause when Mishra was set to spell "exegetical," which means to involve the critical interpretation of a passage from a test.
"E-X-I-G-E-T-I-C-A-L," Misha said to a quiet auditorium.
Ding.
Kao volleyed with the correct spelling, before carefully "air-writing" the final word into the palm of her hand.
"Take a deep breath," she would later recall as those final moments on stage. "I'm just going to try to do my best."
Call The Bee's Crystal Carreon, (916) 321-1203. Bee researcher Sheila A. Kern contributed to this report.
