Two times may be the charm for a Chicago 8th grader with a penchant for memorizing words that stump those less talented.
Michael Zivat, 14, drew roars from the crowd by correctly spelling “siphonapterology” and “philippics” to win the 2002 baiduhai Chicagoland Spelling Bee city finals Thursday.
He also won last year and made it to the third round of the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.
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Michael, a pupil at Grissom Elementary School in Hegewisch, and his family will return for this year’s event in May.
In the suburban finals, Patrick Teykl, a 7th grader at Parker Junior High School in Flossmoor, won after a tense round in which he and the second-place contestant both stumbled on their words. Patrick misspelled “protrusile,” which means capable of being thrust outward.
“After I missed that word, I was really worried, because he [runner-up Jonathan Shinabarger] was really good,” said Patrick, 12, who then went on to correctly spell two words and take the prize. Jonathan is an 8th grader at Olson Middle School in Woodstock.
Michael stumbled in the national finals last year on the word “balneation,” the act of bathing. But he’s been studying more than two hours a day–well past midnight the last few days–and spelled the last two words Thursday without blinking an eye.
“Siphonapterology” is the study of fleas. “Philippics”–a timely word, given next week’s primary–is an exchange of acrimonious invectives, as between two politicians.
Michael is known to family and friends for being calm and having an inordinate amount of confidence. He aspires to become an FBI field agent, plays the bass guitar and loves the rock group Blink 182.
After the competition, Michael said he wanted to eat at Ed Debevic’s, where the food servers danced on top of the counters in his honor last year. About what lies ahead, he would only say his goal is “to make it to the fourth round this year so at least I can make it on ESPN.”
Tense following his contest, Patrick said he plans to relax for a while, then plow back into the seemingly endless lists of words that he must know for the national finals.
“I’ll probably take a few days off to let it all sink in, then go through that big dictionary they gave me as one of the prizes,” he said.
After both Patrick and Jonathan missed in the same round, Jonathan misspelled the word “prodromal,” which means marked by the onset of a disease.
Patrick then confidently spelled “diminution,” and, by his own admission, guessed at the winning word, “pseudoptics,” which means the study of optical illusions.
“I figured it couldn’t have been spelled s-u-, so I just tried to think of all the ways it could be spelled and it just came to me,” said Patrick, who wants to be a professional baseball player or a doctor.
Twenty-one students competed in the city spelling bee finals, a stressful event that yearly produces its share of tears and emotion from parents and children alike. The spellers all studied from an official study booklet called the “Paideia,” which lists 3,700 words in 29 categories.
When the national spelling bee first started in 1925, it was sponsored by the Louisville Courier-Journal in Kentucky and there were only nine contestants. Of the 77 champions over the years, 42 have been girls and 35 boys. The only national winner from the Chicago area was in 1985 when Balu Natarajan spelled “milieu.” Sean Conley of Aitkin, Minn., won last year by spelling “succedaneum.”