Schools

Murrieta's Top Speller Falters on French Word in County Bee

Shruti Amin of Thompson Middle School competed in the Riverside County Spelling Bee Wednesday in Moreno Valley.

Shruti Amin, a seventh grader at Thompson Middle School, represented the Murrieta Valley Unified School District in the Riverside County Spelling Bee on Wednesday.

Shruti, 12, made it to the 12th round before being eliminated by the word embonpoint, said Rick Peoples, spokesman for the Riverside County Office of Education, after the bee ended.

Shruti was among 20 students who were left after Round 4, and 15 still on stage after Round 5. Embonpoint, of French origin, means the condition of being plump; stoutness.

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It was the second year and qualifed for the County Bee.

The three-and-a-half hour bee ended in a tie after the last two survivors went back and forth for 13 more rounds, according to a news release.

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Raymond Galloway, an eighth-grader at Vista Verde Middle School in Val Verde USD, came away the big winner. He will represent Riverside County at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in the Washington, D.C., area in June 1-2. Raymond, who tied for second in last year’s Riverside County Bee, has been competing in the event since he was in the fifth grade, the news release stated.

This year, Raymond wound up in a first-place tie with Eanna Mejia, who attends Corona Ranch Elementary School. Raymond will advance to the Washington contest under rules established by the E.W. Scripps media corporation, which conducts the national Scripps National Bee.

Eanna, as the highest-finishing elementary school student, will be one of two Riverside County representatives at the California Spelling Bee April l6 in Stockton. Citra Benhar, a fifth-grader at Susan B. Coombs Intermediate School in Banning Unified School District, will be the county’s other representative at State.

The other top overall finishers in Riverside County Bee were Preston Carroll, an eighth-grader at Palm Desert Charter School, Desert Sands Unified School District; and Marcos Rubalcava, an eighth-grader at Cahuilla Desert Academy, Coachella Valley Unified School District.

Thirty competitors from districts and private schools across Riverside County, took part in the County Bee at the Moreno Valley Conference Center. Attrition in the single-elimination contest was slow through the initial rounds. But as words grew increasingly difficult, the field began to thin.

Only Raymond and Eanna remained by Round 18. Each was challenged repeatedly with words from the tough “Confidential List,” like sequacity and impuissant, and neither could gain advantage. Judges finally called the match a draw after what they said was the longest one-on-one showdown in memory.

Rules for the Scripps National Spelling Bee specify that only schools which pay a national entry fee can qualify to send a representative to Washington. Val Verde Unified School District had paid those fees; Corona-Norco Unified School District opted not to. The Press-Enterprise will help underwrite Raymond Galloway’s trip to nationals. The Riverside County Office of Education, as organizers and co-sponsors of the County Bee, will underwrite the county’s two entrants in the State competition.

Tom Willman of the Riverside County Office of Education contributed to this report.


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