AKRON – If you ask them, members of the Tippecanoe Valley Middle School Spell Bowl team can spell words like cattarrh, beleaguerment and poliomyelitis. Knowing words like that got them to the state Spell Bowl Saturday at Purdue University, where they placed fifth in their division. It’s the second consecutive year the school Spell Bowl team made it to the state level, guaranteeing them a second banner to hang in the school gymnasium. In the two decades since the middle school was established, only the Spell Bowl team has earned a state banner. Next year? School counselor and Spell Bowl coach Susanne Siebrase is looking for a state championship. To earn the right to go to state, the team had to qualify at the Purdue Area Spell Bowl at TVMS Oct. 26. They made it with a score of 43. The state contest takes the highest six in each of the divisions across Indiana, and Valley was number five. “It wasn’t really hard,” team member Katrina Newsome said of the qualifying contest. Teammate Bradly Shepard agreed the words weren’t hard but he was nervous because of “just the pressure of being up there.” After the TVMS Vikings discovered they had advanced to state, they didn’t hide their excitement. “I was like, ‘Yeah! I actually did it!’ I wasn’t expecting that. I was extremely excited. I wasn’t expecting that at all,” said Quintin Allen. “I was really excited because I didn’t think we would make it because of our low score. When we saw it on the Internet, we were jumping up and down,” said Newsome. Billy Gillman said, “It also gave us a feeling of nervousness because we knew if we made it to state we’d really have to study. We also made it to state last year.” To prepare for the Spell Bowls, Makenzie Oldham said they used the software program CAL-Tutor. It quizzed them on different words, and they could go down the list or have randomly selected words chosen for them. Siebrase said the students practiced before or after school, during their lunch or study period and even at home. “The kids felt they really knew the words,” she said. There were 1,500 words on the list to know, she said, observing that “It takes a lot of work to learn to spell that many words.” Shepard and his family couldn’t find the building at Purdue for the state contest. He was worried he wouldn’t get to participate and his team would lose. “I was extremely nervous,” said Alexis Adams. “I got kind of upset because I got all my words right except the last one,” Shayleigh Shriver said. She left out the “e” in poliomyelitis. At state competition, Valley had eight members on its team. Each student was given nine words to spell. Adams and Shriver spelled eight of their nine correctly. Gillman, Allen and Hannah Jansma had perfect scores. “The people who study the list will really know the list,” Siebrase stated. But the spelling contests taught the students more than words. Allen is an amazing speller, Siebrase said, but he learned to be more confident. Oldham learned to know when to be competitive and when to just relax. Adams learned how to spell better. Siebrase also said it’s about something more. “There’s a lot of pride for our school. The Superintendent (Brett Boggs) and (Principal) Mr. (Blaine) Conley came,” she said. “Hopefully, it’s not the last,” Gillman remarked.
