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By Lawrence Emerson
FauquierNow.com Editor
Over the course of 19 rounds and 170 minutes, they had eliminated 51 competitors.
Only fourth-grader Kyra Holland and seventh-grader Andrew Marino remained.
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Photos/Lawrence Emerson
Andrew Marino and his sister Sophie admire the county spelling bee trophy, which already bears his name for victories in 2010 and 2011.
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The 2012 Fauquier County Division Spelling Bee championship hung in the balance.
Round 20 opened with Andrew nailing “rotunda.”
Kyra spelled “blithe.”
Back and forth they went:
Scenario. Trajectory.
Ravioli. Mahatma.
Plausible. Chronology.
Patriarch. Kabuki.
Kyra fingered a long, fuzzy, green boa draped around her neck and occasionally exhaled deeply.
Andrew tugged at his nametag dangling from an elastic string.
“B-R-A-T-W-U-R-S-T,” he said, spelling his 25th consecutive word correctly.
Then, Kyra missed “castanets” by a letter.
At precisely 1 p.m. Saturday, Andrew enunciated: “H-Y-G-I-E-N-E” in Round 26.
For the third consecutive year, the cerebral Warrenton Middle School student stood alone as the county spelling champ.
The crowd in Auburn Middle School’s “Forum” erupted in applause.
What makes the 12-year-old such a good speller?
“I have absolutely no idea,” Andrew said during an interview after his victory. “I wouldn’t study (for the bee) if Mom and Dad didn’t make me.”
Kyra Holland, a Bradley fourth-grader, and Andrew Marino, a Warrenton Middle seventh-grader, will advance to the regional spelling bee in March. |
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What goes through his mind during competition?
“I try to avoid looking at the crowd,” Andrew explained. “I just fiddle with the name tag.”
When he grows up, the avid reader hopes to do “something with science . . . inventing things.”
Meanwhile, he has dominated the Fauquier spelling bee, winning the title half of the six years that county schools have conducted the competition.
In 2010, “Drew” made the county bee as an alternate, only after a fellow student at James G. Brumfield Elementary couldn’t participate. He advanced to the regional competition in Fredericksburg and finished sixth.
Last year, he placed fourth in the regional.
This March, he aspires to do better in Fredericksburg and to advance to the national bee in Washington, D.C.
Kyra, a C.M. Bradley Elementary School student, also won a spot in the regional competition.
Fellow Fauquier competitors may take consolation in the fact that Drew has but one more year of eligibility in the local bee, open to elementary and middle school students.
But, his parents, Rob Marino and Dr. Diana Chalmeta, also have two daughters — Sophie, 10, and Abby 8 — who’ve done well in their school’s bee.
And, anyone can wilt in the heat of competition.
“I almost messed up on the last word . . . hygiene,” Drew said.
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