Haines School sixth grader Lila Tarleton won the school’s spelling bee and after taking a regional test, placed high enough to join 75 other students heading to the state championship bee at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus.
The 11-year-old – who said she aspires to be valedictorian and an honor roll student – sat down with Chilkat Valley News editor Rashah McChesney to talk about the experience and her future goals.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
McChesney: What made you decide to tackle spelling contests?
Tarleton: It just seems kind of fun. But I get really nervous.
What part makes you nervous?
Being in front of people. I get embarrassed and I freeze up.
So this is your second year competing at the school’s spelling bee in Haines – but you won first this year. Do you remember what word you won first with?
Writhes.
At what point did they tell you that you could go compete at state?
It was four days after the deadline. I was in school and we’d just gotten back from a field trip and my mom called me and told me about it. I felt really excited.
What did the space look like? Set the scene for me.
It’s like the Chilkat Center except a lot bigger and there were 75 chairs on stage. Everyone had a number 1-75, and depending on the number the judges gave you, you had to sit in that seat. You could be toward the front or toward the back.
What was your number?
65.
Oh, so you were in the back. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
I mean, the easier words were in the front. But, a lot – like over half – of the people got out in the first round. So, if I would have been one of the first people, I would have been scared that I would have been like the first person out.
How do you practice?
Usually I’ll have my parents give me a word, and then I’ll spell it, and they’ll tell me it’s right or wrong. But for the state spelling bee there’s an app the Scripps National Spelling Bee makes to practice the words, so I just did that. It says a word to you, gives you the pronunciation and then you have to spell it. If you’re right, it doesn’t make a sound.
If you’re wrong?
It makes a ding.
Did you study it a lot in the four days before you had to do your spelling?
Yeah, I tried to study as much as I could.
Did you start to hear that ding in your sleep?
Yeah.
How about words you had to say or spell phonetically in your head so that you could spell them.
Chlorofluorocarbon. How I say it in my head is chloro-flu-er-oh-carbon.
Were you nervous that they were going to ask a word that you had just never heard before?
Yeah. Or they’d ask me a word that I had no idea how to spell and then I’d be the first person out.
But it didn’t turn out like that. What happened? What was your first word?
My first word was elusive. But she had a Midwestern accent so she was saying words kind of funny. I asked her to repeat it and I spelled it.
You get your first word and you’re not the first one out – but more than half the kids did. Were there any words you heard that you didn’t know or that made you nervous?
Well, in the first round they started out with the [easier] words so I knew pretty much all of them and I felt really bad for the people that got out.
What was your second-round word?
I got Jurassic and didn’t get out.
What was your third-round word?
Domesticity.
Ooh, that’s a good one. Did you spell it correctly?
Yeah.
What would happen when you spelled something correctly?
The judge would be like “that is correct,” and then you would sit down. There was clapping.
How many kids were left at that point?
In the third round there were 38 kids.
Then what happened?
In the fourth round there were only 24 kids left and, I think, like five of them got out before me. And then when I had my word, I had possessive and I got out.
What letter did you miss?
The s in the first double-s. I was really disappointed because in language arts we’ve been practicing possessive nouns for some reason, and I spelled it right every time I wrote it down. And then in the spelling bee, I spelled it wrong.
Have you been beating yourself up about that for awhile?
Yeah. I just got kind of emotional. Me and my dad ended up not staying until the end. I wish we would have because it was really close. There ended up being six rounds and the girl from Homer won with the word tomahawk.
Are you going to do it again?
Yeah, I want to. It was really fun and a cool experience. I want to try a little harder by practicing more.
What do you think makes you good at spelling?
I read a lot. I see a lot of the words that I’m having to spell in books and somehow that makes me better at spelling them.
What kinds of things are you reading? Who is your favorite author right now?
A lot of fiction. J.K. Rowling. “Harry Potter.” I’ve read all of them and I’m trying to find more book series that are similar. I really like them.
Do you have a favorite letter?
X. It just kind of looks cool and it’s not in a lot of words.
Do you have a favorite word?
It’s going to sound weird, but I like pseudonyms. It doesn’t really mean anything to me, but I like it. I like the way it looks.
What does the winner of the spelling bee get?
They get a big trophy and a $3,000 scholarship for college.