Victoria competes at state spelling bee

By Stuart Hedstrom 
Staff Writer

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — Late last month SeDoMoCha Middle School sixth-grader Steffi Victoria put her spelling abilities to the test with the state’s best at the annual Maine State Spelling Bee on March 22 at the University of Southern Maine in Portland.
    Earlier in the school year Victoria finished as one of the top four grade 6 spellers at SeDoMoCha, and in January she earned a trip to the state bee over two months later after winning the Piscataquis County district competition.

Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom

    PISCATAQUIS COUNTY’S TOP SPELLER — SeDoMoCha Middle School sixth-grader Steffi Victoria represented Piscataquis County at the Maine State Spelling Bee on March 22 at the University of Southern Maine in Portland. Victoria, wearing her bee nametag and holding an iPod shuffle she won, finished in first place at the district bee in January to then be one of Maine’s top 15 spellers competing at the state level.

    Victoria said she practiced for several hours per day in the weeks leading up to the state bee, studying words and the accompanying definitions and pronunciations in preparation.
    “I was nervous on stage, it was bigger than I thought,” Victoria said, with the Maine State Spelling Bee taking place in a large college lecture hall. She said during the county competition the middle-schoolers sat off to the side of the audience rather than in front and only stood directly in front of the panel of judges when they stepped up to the microphone.
    Thirteen other students joined Victoria at the state bee, and she said most were older than her. Fourteen-year-old Lucy Turnavicus, an eighth-grader at Lincoln Middle School in Portland, ended up winning the bee after she and fellow grade 8 student Brandon Aponte, 13, of Brooklin and the Downeast Homeschool Co-op, needed 94 rounds and about five hours to determine a Maine spelling champion.   
    Victoria, who said spelling has always come easy to her, said she is looking forward to next year when she hopes to win the district spelling bee again and return to the state competition with a previous trip under her belt.
    Literacy teacher and district spelling bee organizer Carolyn Clark, who traveled to Portland to see Victoria compete, mentioned a spelling club should be starting soon for interested students in grade 5-8. Clark also thanked Victoria’s grade 6 English language arts teacher Diane Robinson, who Clark said always encourages her students.