| Spelling Ace Set for Nationals |
When Anthony Tassone won The Chronicle-Journal Regional Spelling Bee on March 6 he flexed his muscles before receiving a large trophy.
Since then, Anthony has been flexing the muscle above his shoulders by adding more than 2,000 words to his already-large vocabulary.
“I‘ve been going through different dictionaries and picking up more words,” he said Monday while sitting in the Corpus Christi School library.
He flies to Ottawa on Wednesday to compete in the Canwest Canspell National Spelling Bee, but first he‘ll take in a hockey game featuring his favourite team the Ottawa Senators against the Florida Panthers, while sitting in a private suite with other spelling bee competitors.
Anthony will see the RCMP Musical Ride, tour Parliament Hill and visit an aunt who lives in Ottawa.
On Sunday, Anthony takes to the stage to flex his brain power. He seems calm, cool and collected, but most of all, he appears ready.
The Grade 4 student has spent hours with his father Pino learning to spell new words.
Anthony said big words haven‘t given him trouble.
Courier, though, was a challenge, but it only took five tries to get it right.
A moment later, he correctly spelled infructescence, a word not even found in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary.
“I have no clue what it means,” Anthony said.
TheFreeDictionary.com defines infructescence as a “purely biological unfolding of events involved in an organism changing gradually from a simple to a more complex level.”
He described the studying as fun, especially when the end result is winning prizes.
After taking on 32 other youngsters to win the Regional Spelling Bee, Anthony received a $5,000 Education Award and a laptop.
That victory earned him the right to represent the Northwest in the Canwest Canspell National Spelling Bee.
If he out-spells the 20 other competitors, from grades 4 to 8, he‘ll fly home with a $15,000 Canspell Education Award and another big trophy.
All 21 spellers will be featured in a live webcast at www.canspell.com on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Global television will air a two-hour special about the National Spelling Bee on April 3 at 8 p.m.
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