BANGOR – Sixth-grader Thomas Guthrie wasn’t “lackadaisical” when it came to spelling and, to prove it, he spelled that word correctly and won the state Spelling Bee on Saturday.
Guthrie, 12, of Bangor outspelled 15 other middle school pupils, some of them one or two grade levels ahead of him, to win the top honors. He will represent the state at the national competition in Washington in May.
Guthrie was beaming after the bee, but he said there were times when he was a bit nervous, especially as the number of competitors dwindled but the competition heated up.
“It was relatively easy until we got to the end when the words got harder,” he said after the 50-minute-long competition concluded at Eastern Maine Community College.
Guthrie was prepared. He had studied words used in previous national competitions, and he also is a voracious reader, reading as much as four hours a day, he said.
It’s an interest he started early as a tot. One of the first phrases he learned to obey was “turn the page,” his mother, Ulrike Guthrie, said.
For added benefit, Guthrie was wearing his lucky cargo pants and sweatshirt, a uniform he said he has worn through nearly all the competitions that led up to this one.
His grandmother Carolyn Guthrie, who flew in from Kentucky last week for the bee, said she thinks that much of her grandson’s success Saturday was because of his hard work and determination, although she had supplied him with a little good luck charm of her own. She handed him a penny she found outside the hall. It was well-worn, but she remembered the adage that good luck comes to those finding a penny on the ground.
In the competition sponsored by the Bangor Daily News, the pupils had to spell a word correctly to advance to the next round. While at the microphone on the podium, the spellers could ask pronouncer Tim Allen, assistant copy desk chief at the Bangor Daily News, to repeat the word, to define it, to explain its origin or to use it in a sentence.
Once contestants start spelling a word, they have to continue; they can’t start over, according to the rules.
The spellers were carefully watched and listened to by a panel of judges that included Barbara McDade, director of the Bangor Public Library; Kathryn Olmstead, associate professor of journalism at the University of Maine; and W. Gregory Swett, dean of students and enrollment management at EMCC.
Looking back on the bee, Michelle James, 14, who attends China Middle School and represented Kennebec County, said she wished she had asked Allen to define the word “osteitic,” which has to do with an inflammation of bone or bony tissue. After James misspelled the word, Guthrie spelled it and “lackadaisical” correctly and won.
After it was over, James shook Guthrie’s hand, congratulated him and told him he had done a “very good job.”
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins addressed the spellers, extolling them for all the hard work, determination and practice – not to mention guts to go up on stage – that it took them to get where they were Saturday.
Collins reminded the gathering that reading didn’t come naturally to them, that parents had opened their first book and their teachers had opened the world of reading to them.
“They encouraged you to excel, they pushed you when you were ready and they lent a hand to you when you needed one,” she said.
They have started to light the fire within you, Collins told them. “Your inquiring minds will keep it blazing.”
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