After successfully spelling “campaign”, Andrew Ticao received thunderous applause from classmates and onlookers.
Ticao, 10, a fourth-grade student at John Mills Elementary School, was the winner of this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee competition at Elmwood Park Community Unit School District 401. Last year’s winner, Seth Tingal, 11, who attends Elmwood Elementary School, was the runner-up at the event, which took place on Jan. 22.
Kelly Baird, the school district’s enrichment teacher and organizer of the bee, said the competition was one of the best he’d seen.
“It was epic,” he said. “It went 32 rounds. I had to go to the library to get a dictionary, because we were close to running out of words.”
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The competition began with 32 fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students from John Mills Elementary School and Elmwood Elementary School. They competed in Elmwood School’s gym, as students, village officials and supporters looked on.
The spelling bee took more than two hours to finish — an hour longer than it usually takes, according to Baird.
“Normally, within an hour, you’re done, but this time it was different,” he said. “We even took a couple of breaks because they were up there so long.”
Baird said that the majority of the students were well-prepared, but eventually, the field thinned to just Ticao and Tingal.
That the last two competitors representing their respective elementary schools in the district made it even more exciting, Baird said.
“It was very enjoyable watching it,” he said. “It became very competitive. It was exciting that one kid was from Elmwood Park [Elementary School] and one kid was from John Mills,” he said.
Ticao, who recently moved to Elmwood Park, said this is his first time participating in a spelling bee.
“I really didn’t expect to win,” he said. “It was pretty amazing.”
Twitter: @DavidDPollard