When you ask the average twelve year-old, ‘what’s the hardest word you’ve ever had to spell?’ most probably couldn’t give you an answer. Then again, Lia Eggleston isn’t your typical twelve year-old. After a moment’s reflection, the poised 8th grader, who attends Snowy Range Academy—a public charter school in Laramie, Wyoming—definitively responds, “koan.” Not only do I have no idea what this word means, I have to ask Lia to spell it for me.
Lia is the winner of the 2012 Wyoming State Spelling Bee. With that accomplishment comes a next step that has been a dream for Lia: being a competitor in the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee. The event, which has captivated audiences and Hollywood (fiction and nonfiction films), will be held in National Harbor, Maryland on May 29-31, 2012.
Lia’s path to becoming a spelling bee champion was inspired at home: her brother participated in a state spelling bee, so she decided to give it a try. She admitted that her first year of competition included a few lucky guesses, such as Japanese-rooted word “koan,” and Lia ended up placing 2nd in the 2010 Wyoming State Spelling Bee. From there, she became more dedicated in pursuit of the state title. She began studying and memorizing words from Spell It!, a list of a approximately 1,150 words created in cooperation with Merriam-Webster as a study aid for the Scripps National Spelling Bee. In her second attempt, Lia placed 3rd in the 2011 Wyoming State Spelling Bee.
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Photo: Lia Eggleston's official headshot for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
With her mantra “the only place left is 1st” keeping her motivated, Lia began working with a coach, University of Wyoming student Jen Black, who was a former Scripps Spelling Bee competitor. Together, they study word origins—Lia notes that the Greek and Latin derived words are easy once you have roots memorized, Spanish and Japanese-based words are more phonetic, but words with Germanic and Slavic bases are really hard—and practice the most challenging words on the Spell It! list. Lia estimates that she spends at least a few hours on the weekend and an hour after school with Jen once or twice each week practicing, adding in a half hour a day before school doing computerized spelling tests over the past month. The study limit permitted by Scripps is four hours a day, but Lia’s eighth grade schoolwork at Snowy Range Academy Charter School, and her other extracurricular activities—cello, dance, and theater—mean that she has to make tough choices about how to spend her time.
With the support of her Snowy Range Academy and dance school classmates (see picture below), who Lia says are “pretty excited” for her, and teachers (“they already knew I had won the state bee before I could tell them”), Lia has her eye on the prize. She will just have time to finish her school year (classes end on May 25th) before flying to the East Coast for the competition on the 27th. As a representative of the public charter school movement, we will “bee” cheering her on. You can follow Lia and the National Bee on www.spellingbee.com, Facebook, or on ESPN during the week of the Bee. G-O Lia! Even I can spell that one.
Photo: Lia Eggleston (bottom row, second from right) spells her favorite word (Pfeffernuss--a German spice cookie) with help from her friends in the Laramie Dance Center's Advanced Irish Step dance class. Photo credit: Anne Brande, photographer at Ludwig Photography.
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