The winner of the 32nd annual Martha’s Vineyard All School Spelling Bee is fifth-grader Juliet Merrill from the Edgartown School and the winning word was jalapeño.
On Friday, the middle school competition at the Performing Arts Center at MVRHS came down to a barn burner of a finale. Merrill squared off with eighth grader Isaac Vanderhoop from West Tisbury, in a gripping, ten-round final after the four other contestants had fallen.
Both seemed unbeatable after breezing through words like “intellectual” and “anthropology” but Merrill took the crown with “jalapeno” after Vanderhoop stumbled on “noxious.”
“I feel amazing,” said Merrill after her victory. “I’m still nervous though.”
Merrill’s win earned her the right to compete in a National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., a trip sponsored by the MV Times. Merrill said that she is excited for the trip and that she will be going for the win.
On Friday, the all-school championship bee kicked off with six of the Islands top middle school spellers taking the stage. To qualify, they outspelled over 700 other Island students.
The lineup included sixth-grader from the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter school Kaz Pedler’ Chilmark School fourth-grader Virginia Wallace; Oak Bluffs fifth-grader Liam Rottman; Tisbury fifth-grader Melissa Fogaça as well as Merrill and Vanderhoop.
Some of the words that the contestants stumbled on included “elegant,” “wince” and “modem.” When it came to Vanderhoop and Merrill, the two went back and forth for an extended period. But when Merrill secured it with “jalapeño,” she was all smiles and her classmates from the Edgartown School burst into applause.
Merrill, after the winning moment, was still buzzing with nerves.
“This felt important to me, and I had to study a lot to achieve it,” said Merrill, surrounded by loved ones. “I was quizzed on my words for one or two hours a day, and usually I’d study before quizzing on them.”
Merrill said her interest in winning the spelling bee was born from her love of reading.
Even with all her preparation, Merrill confessed there was one word that she still feared to be heard on stage, “ophthalmologist,” which she spelled flawlessly for this reporter.
What an uplifitng story – Juliet , given the deluge of grim news we seem to get bombarded with daily, you made my day! Just wondering if you had to indicate the curly que symbol on jalapeno as well (its not on my keyboard)
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