From her pink Tinkerbell sweatshirt down to her yellow tennis shoes with black, bee-ish stripes, Christina Huling arrived at the Regional Spelling Bee dressed to win. Like other great competitors, Huling has her share of good luck charms, but it was more likely the hours she spent studying that won her the regional title for the second year in a row than the clothes she put on that morning. Huling, a seventh-grader at Annandale Middle School, outspelled 25 competitors in nine rounds at St. John’s University, Monday, March 2, for the opportunity to compete for the state title Thursday, March 12, at the Big Wood Event Center in Fergus Falls. Last year she finished third at state. Huling was the first Annandale student in 10 years to advance to the state meet, according to Sandy Greve, teacher of the gifted and talented at AMS. Although Huling figures she’ll wear her lucky outfit to state, she actually memorized several hundred words in preparation for the March 2 event. The words, she said, were on a list she downloaded from myspellit.com, a site dedicated to spelling bee competitors. The site’s collection is so accurate, she said, that all of the words she was given at the contest were on the list. The good luck outfit happened by chance. "I wore it to districts last year, and then to regions again by accident, so I guess it was lucky," she said. To advance to state, Huling had to first place high enough at the district event, then earn at least a top two position at regionals. She has won the local district competition for the last three years. This year she wore the "lucky" outfit intentionally. It consists of the Tinkerbell sweatshirt over a striped turtleneck with a pair of blue striped jeans with butterflies on the pocket. The yellow shoes that resemble bumble bees were her crowning feature and new this year. "My mom found a pattern for them in a magazine. It took us a while to find yellow shoes," Huling said. "I added the black stripes." Greve knows it was anything but luck that earned Huling the championship for the second year in a row. "I’m not surprised with Christina’s success," Greve said. "She is a voracious reader, exposing her to lots of vocabulary words. She is keenly interested in words and knowing what they mean and she has an unbelievable memory. "She is a naturally good speller because of these characteristics, but becomes an amazing speller because of the time she has vested in studying for this. She has found something she was pretty good at and is putting in the time and effort to be amazing at it." Last week’s regional event consisted of two sessions, morning and afternoon, from which four students would advance to state. Huling took part in the morning event with 25 others ranging in age from the fifth grade to the eighth grade. By the sixth round there were only four spellers left. Two more fell in the seventh until finally it was down to just Huling and Joseph Roberts, an eighth-grader from St. John’s Preparatory School for round eight. Roberts missed "accommodate" by one "m" and Huling spelled "staccato" right to go on to the ninth round where she spelled "pyre" correctly to win. Had she missed it, Roberts would have been back in and they would each have received another word, Greve said. She also spelled "alligator, fathom, bayou, consensus, omnivorous" and "pochismo" correctly to get to the final two rounds. "I kept a list of words other people got wrong, and I’m not sure I would have gotten some of them right either. I might have missed accommodate too," Huling said. From here, her goal is to advance to the national spelling bee in Washington, D.C., an event that is broadcast on ESPN. To do that she has to win state on Thursday. Huling is ready for the challenges of achieving that goal. "There is a big difficulty jump between regions and state I noticed last year," she said. "But the two people who beat me last year were eighth-graders." Since the spelling bee is only for students in the fifth through eighth grades, they can no longer compete, she explained. Last year Huling misspelled "oligotrophic" to end up third. "I’m hoping she can win this year," Greve said. "She has put in the time and effort to be well prepared. She is also able to remain calm and collect her thoughts under pressure. It will just come down to what words she receives."
