Stanley-Boyd eighth grader Vaughn Schneider is headed to the State Spelling Bee in Madison this upcoming Saturday! The one day State level competition scheduled for March 7, 2020 is the next step in a series of yearly competitions from which the winner (or else winners) will be sent to the 93rd Annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, scheduled to be held from May 24th through the 29th of this year, in National Harbor, Maryland. The first National Spelling Bee took place in 1925 when nine newspapers reportedly decided to come together and make a new tradition, the Louisville Courier-Journal being among them. In 1941, media company Scripps-Howard took over sponsorship of the contest.

As for Schneider, this year will be his second trip to State, having previously qualified for the next level up from Regionals competition back in the sixth grade. His journey to State began before that though, fueled it would seem in part by a little friendly competition. Schneider explained it all recently in an interview held down at the local library at Fourth and Emery in Stanley.

“I was in fifth grade when I became involved in the spelling bee,” he said, before continuing. “In fifth grade, I didn’t study for the school spelling bee, but after seeing Autumn win, I wanted to beat her.” Fellow Stanley-Boyd student Autumn Meeker previously qualified for the State level of competition before Schneider. Meanwhile, studying for the sixth grade competition himself paid big dividends for Schneider, it would seem.

“I was the only 6th grader to get 10/10 on the test to get into the (school) spelling bee,” Schneider said. “So a lot of people were depending on me to dethrone her, which is what happened.” Back when he won the Stanley-Boyd school bee in sixth grade though, he didn’t know there was anything beyond the local level. After making it to State the same year, that all changed—he wanted to repeat the feat again. Meeker also went to State competition when she was in sixth grade, Schneider said.

Between School and State level competition, there are the Regionals to make it through, based on CESA groupings. “We’re CESA 10,” Schneider said, with a reported 12 CESAs total statewide. In CESA 10 he said, the top four spellers get to go to State.

To win the school competition this year, Schneider correctly spelled “Columbia,” while to win at the Regionals level, he spelled “Insignia.” But lest one think that getting strings of letters right is all that’s involved in the spelling bee competition, Schneider made it known that there are vocabulary rounds as well, these being rounds 5 and 10 respectively. During Round 5 at State last time, Schneider was asked about the meaning of ‘Mohair.’ “They asked if it was used for sweaters or wigs. I guessed wigs and it was wrong,” Schneider said. When Schneider went to State last time, the top three got to go to Nationals, but he wasn’t sure if the same arrangement holds now. Each of the top three winners at State gets a trophy of varying height, he said.

As it turned out that year, neither of the final two contenders at State could best each other, which led to the declaration of cochampions. Later on in late May of 2019, eight word whizzes became the joint winners on the National level (the first such instance ever recorded), leading to the neologism ”Octochamps,” also spelled “octo-champs,” in apparent disagreement as to its proper rendering—new words can have that.

Questioned as to preparation and study techniques, Schneider said that “over the summer I read the Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary,” which at several inches thick was no small feat. “It took a while,” he said of the dictionary prep sessions.

In addition, Schneider said he studied language patterns and word roots, as well as words on the Champion’s List, which is used both for Regionals competition and the first ten rounds of State. “I think they get harder based on how they look compared to their pronunciation,” Schneider said of the increase in word difficulty over the length of the contest. Winners of their local school spelling bee get to go to Regionals, and if successful go from there on to State. Speaking of the State competition, during our interview with son Vaughn, his mom Michelle Schneider was busy preparing in a different way for the upcoming State level spelling contest.

“I’m excited,” she shared for the record, “Just printed my map all the way down to Madison.”