San Mateo Park crowns its 1st spelling champion

Nearly two dozen third, fourth and fifth grade students competed in Wednesday’s spelling bee, which went 12 rounds before a winner was crowned. Students faced words like scars, discarded, rituals, geopolitical, traditional and Angola.

Natusch went on to properly spell crevices and nares before affirming her win by properly spelling the word shocker. The win didn’t come as a surprise to Natusch though, who noted she knew all the words given to her.

“I’m super proud of her,” Natusch’s dad, Tom, said.

The parents of Ruby Lin, the school’s spelling bee runner-up, said they were also proud of their daughter. The family often practiced spelling together during car rides and Lin also dedicated time to reading books to help her prepare. After successfully passing through 10 rounds of spelling, Lin misspelled thurible, a censerlike vessel used to burn incense during religious ceremonies, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a key source during the spelling bee.

Despite coming in second place, Lin leapt in joy when Natusch correctly spelled her final word and immediately hugged her classmate.

“I’m kind of sad but I’m glad I got as far as I did,” Lin said.

Eduardo Aguilar, who placed third, went eight rounds before stumbling in the ninth when asked to spell dissolute. The audience of classmates, teachers and families cheered for Aguilar’s successes and groaned when he slipped, as they had done for all the students before him.

San Mateo Park Principal Karrie Haselton credited fifth grade teacher Patrick Manyak for bringing the event to the school for the first time. Manyak, who started with the school in the fall, said he immediately approached Haselton about participating in the Scripps Bee. Once he got the green light, he registered the school and distributed materials to each third, fourth and fifth grade teacher.

The top students from each class’s individual spelling bees made up the 21 students who participated at the school level. Manyak said the students were encouraged to study a list of words over the holiday break.

Like the students, Manyak also had to practice. Many of the words were difficult to pronounce, making his role as pronouncer a “high-pressure job,” he said. He thanked school board Trustee Alison Proctor and David Chambliss, assistant superintendent of Education Services, for serving as the events judges by verifying or correcting each student’s spelling.

Proctor said she was honored to serve as a judge during the event and lauded Manyak for planning the event and San Mateo Park teachers for supporting their students in preparing for the competition.

“The Park School Spelling Bee was the culmination of a tremendous amount of hard work by the students,” Proctor said in an emailed statement. “They spelled some very challenging words while standing in front of a large audience made up of their classmates, teachers, family and judges. It was heartwarming to see the students in the audience supporting their friends, the teachers giving hugs when a student misspelled a word, and the roaring applause when Abigail successfully spelled her final word, making her the champion.”

As Natusch heads to the Regional Spelling Bee, hosted by the San Ramon Valley Rotary Club, Manyak said she’ll have to study a list of 4,000 words. The winner of the Regional Bee will then be invited to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

Haselton wished Natusch well in the next step of the competition and both she and Manyak shared hopes the event will become an annual tradition at the elementary school.

“Overall, the San Mateo Park Elementary School Bee was extremely exciting, and each of the 21 class champions showed passion and courage,” said Manyak, who encouraged younger students to continue practicing for future bees. “We hope to build on this success and have an even bigger pool of participants next year.”