FRESNO, Calif. - On a sunny afternoon outside a library in Clovis, Caroline Van Garsse flips through hundreds of pages of textbooks.
Unlike many of her peers, the 8th grader from Alta Sierra Intermediate School isn’t spending her weekday afternoons glued to a screen.
Instead, she’s studying for the Scripps National Spelling Bee – a high-stakes contest that’s so competitive it’s televised nationally and was even the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary film.
The three-night event taking place in Maryland opens Tuesday and includes preliminaries, semifinals, quarter finals and finals competitions to find the best speller in America. It officially concludes Thursday.
Study sessions with Van Garsse's spelling coach or her father involve copious spelling – in fact, “copious” is one of the words she’s been quizzed on, as well as “sinecure,” “munificent,” and thousands of others. She’s also memorized word roots, parts of speech, and definitions under pressure as the competition approached.
“It’s definitely a lot more studying than I thought it was going to be,” she explains. “I quickly realized it’s actually a lot more rigorous and time-consuming than I originally thought.”
Van Garsse qualified for the national competition after she came out on top at the Fresno County Spell-Off in February at the Clovis Veterans Memorial District. There, she triumphed over 40 other spellers from across the county.
“It kind of didn’t feel real for a second…it was really overwhelming at first,” she said, remembering the moment she won after correctly spelling the word “excerpt.”
Not only did she automatically advance to the nationals, but she and three runners-up were also sent to the state competition last month.
One of those spellers was Fugman Elementary School 5th grader Warren Li, who tied for third place.
Just after the county competition, Li gleefully described his experience as “sesquipedalian” – which means long-winded – then proceeded to correctly spell it out.
In the weeks leading up to the state spelling competition, Li studied by drilling through lengthy word lists with the help of his 9-year-old twin brothers. The two 3rd graders, Charlie and Benji, did their best to pronounce mouthfuls like “retinitis pigmentosa” and “ardoise.”
They weren’t the only family members supporting Li through his heavy study sessions. Even his grandmother joined in, translating words for him to spell from her native Mandarin.
“I have my grandma, my mom, my little brothers, and then…my friends sometimes help me,” Li said – plus he studied regularly with a spelling coach.
This was Li’s second year competing in the state competition. This year, he placed eighth in the elementary division; last year, as a 4th grader, he made it to seventh. Although he wasn’t in the top three either time around, the experience has left a lasting impression.
“It’s still just generally a great way to learn…public speaking during the competitions. You can learn lots of new words and vocabulary that you can use to your own good,” Li shared.
Van Garsse didn’t place at the state level, either, though that didn’t prevent her from advancing to the national competition starting Tuesday.
Spelling can build a ‘framework of learning’
For young spellers, spelling bee competitions are more than just trophies.
Paul Loeffler, a sports broadcaster for Fresno State athletics, is a former spelling champion himself.
“They’re building this framework of learning that is going to serve them well no matter what career they end up in,” Loeffler said.
Today, he hosts the national TV broadcast of the Scripps National Spelling Bee and also serves as Fresno County’s “spell master,” where he recites words for the students to spell onstage and gets to announce who is headed to the capital each year.
“I think the best moment for me is…when you have two spellers at the end who are just both so well-prepared, they’re not missing at all, and it just keeps going and going,” Loeffler recalls.
He knows what it is like to be onstage. In 1990, as a middle school champion in Merced County, he advanced to the national competition. There, he tied for 13th place. The word that tripped him up: “stachyose.”
“It’s a sugar derived from the Chinese artichoke. I asked for a language of origin and there was none,” he said. “A speller never forgets the word they missed.”
Greater still, he remembers the impact of the experience.
Spelling bees, Loeffler said, help build discipline through repetition. They also offer a better understanding of language and word etymology. They improve public speaking skills, help manage nerves under pressure, and can help promote critical thinking skills.
Perhaps surprisingly, according to Loeffler, they can even encourage community amongst spellers.
“There’s this camaraderie among the competitors that you don’t see in a lot of other events. In the spelling bee, the kids celebrate each other’s successes,” Loeffler said.
Decades later, Loeffler is still celebrating other spellers.
In 2016, he helped transform the Fresno County Spell-Off from a local competition into a national qualifier. Prior to this transformation, the county’s top spellers had no way of competing on the national stage.
His inspiration was a top county speller named Ananya Vinay that he knew could advance beyond the county.
The following year, in 2017, she did: not only did she compete in the national spelling bee, she was crowned champion after 19 rounds of spelling.
The competition ended on the word “marocain,” which is a silky French fabric.
And she says that experience was transformative.
“I can say wholeheartedly that the spelling bee completely, fundamentally changed who I am,” Vinay, who is in college now, told KVPR for this story. “The spelling bee forced me to truly get out of my comfort zone and challenge myself to do things I never would have thought I would have had the courage to do…it helped remarkably with my confidence among a multitude of things.”
And now she, too, is celebrating other spellers – by mentoring them.
One of her mentees, in fact, is Warren Li, who attends the same Fresno elementary school she did.
“I've been coaching spelling in various capacities around the country ever since I was in 7th grade,” Vinay explained. “And every single time, no matter how well they do, it's very refreshing and fulfilling to see their hard work and their passion pay off and to see them grow and have a fun challenging experience on stage.”
More than just words
That camaraderie was on display at this year’s county and state spell-offs, where students smiled and high-fived one another between rounds of spelling.
Even as the number of competitors shrank, the students continued encouraging each other.
Li and Van Garsse say the most important thing they’ve taken away from the bee has been the knowledge and skills they picked up along the journey.
“If I do get eliminated, I want to feel like I gave my best,” Van Garsse shared. “I’ve definitely gained knowledge in general…It's useful information.”
Van Garsse hopes to be a lawyer one day. Li wants to be a computer scientist.
No matter their final rankings, spelling competitions have taught them both that what’s important isn’t just what they spell, but rather the words – and worlds – they build next.
