Glendale Heights girl headed to D.C. for national spelling bee
Glendale Heights teen Sophia Whittemore admits to being a little nervous about competing in the Scripps National Spelling Bee later this month in Washington, D.C. But only a little.
“(I’m) more excited than nervous,” said the eighth-grader at St. Walter School in Roselle. “It’s going to be a new experience and it will definitely be a memory.”
Sophia proved her spelling mettle back in February when she won the DuPage County Regional Spelling Bee with the championship word “neonatology.”
She recalled being very nervous going into the DuPage bee, but as the rounds went on she saw that her study had paid off and she became more confident.
“Once I spelled that last word, it was more shock than anything,” she said. “It was incredible happiness. Euphoria.”
Sophia said since then she has been preparing for the national bee by studying one to three hours a day. Fascinated with word origins and patterns of words from different languages, she studies etymology and chooses words from the dictionary to learn.
“I’m very interested in history and what a word has gone through to become that way,” she said.
Her knowledge of word origins paid off in the DuPage County bee when she was given the word “batik.” Sophia, who also speaks Spanish and Indonesian, recognized batik as an Indonesian form of dress.
“My mom (a native Indonesian speaker) was laughing when that word came,” Sophia said.
ComEd, the sponsor of the DuPage bee, will cover all expenses for Sophia and her parents to attend the spelling bee final, which runs May 27 to June 1. They’ll have enough time in Washington to take in a couple of museums.
Sophia will be among 278 spellers at the bee from throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and schools for U.S. military dependents abroad. ESPN broadcasts much of the competition.
If Sophia emerges the national winner, she’ll receive a $30,000 cash award and $5,000 scholarship, along with other prizes.
“To win the bee would be an achievement of a lifetime,” she said.