Bonham middle schooler Zheng wins regional spelling bee, follows in brother's footsteps
Coming out on top of 12 other top spellers from the region, Jayden Zheng won the 2023 regional spelling Bee Saturday afternoon at Tascosa High School in Amarillo.
Zheng, a seventh-grader from Bonham Middle School, outlasted Randall County Spelling Champion Jensen Betzen, a seventh-grader from Randall Junior High School, to win the competition in the 15th round.
Sound problems plagued the competition, which caused students to have words repeated multiple times and sometimes for the announcer to get closer to the students to have them understand the word.
Cheryl Hill, a family member of Betzen and a former teacher, said that today’s competition showed the need for schools to have quality sound systems.
In the first round, only one competitor who misspelled the word "trumpet" was eliminated. Through each of the first four rounds, another top speller fell to the wayside. Round five was problematic for many of the competitors, leaving the field at four participants.
Still in the competition with Zheng and Betzen were Raine De Guzman of Crocket Elementary in Hutchinson and Irvin Rosales of Booker Junior High School in Lipscomb. Guzman was eliminated in round eight by the word "aberration." The word "beguile" claimed the next victim in round nine, leaving Zheng and Betzen as the only spellers standing for round 10.
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Through the next four rounds, neither contestant missed any spellings, with such difficult words as "idiosyncratic" and "coriander" being on the announcer's list. In round 14, Betzen was given the word "brouhaha," and he just barely missed the spelling of the word. Zheng was then given the word "bulwark" and spelled it correctly.
When down to the last two spellers, the winner must spell the current round word and then the next. Zheng then proceeded to spell the winning word "einstein."
Zheng was deliberate in all of his spellings, taking his time while appearing slightly reserved onstage.
“It feels really good to win today,” Zheng said. "The competition today was really tough."
He said he prepared using word club, focusing on the words of champions, and would like to consider himself a good speller. Zheng said that while nervous, he really worked on the stage to remain calm.
Asked how it felt to be going to the Washington, D.C., area to compete in the national spelling bee, Zheng said that he looked forward to the sights and culture.
“There are a lot of interesting things to see in the capital; they have a lot of nice museums there,” Zheng said.
Barbara Wang, Zheng’s mom, said that she was very proud of her son’s accomplishment and said that her son put in a lot of work to win the competition.
“I feel really good for him and his effort,” Wang said. "I am really proud that he was able to win the regional. He has gone from being in the audience of his older brother to now winning on stage."
His older brother, Jeff Zheng, was a three-time regional spelling bee champion at Ascension Academy in Amarillo. He advanced to nationals three times, so this will not be the first time his family has made the trip to Washington, D.C. In fact, this was not the first time that the two families were the last two standing on stage in a spelling bee facing off against each other. Jeff Zheng and Dak Betzen previously competed against each other for regionals.
Jensen Betzen, who was the runner-up after finishing third in the regional the previous year, was happy to do better but was slightly disappointed to come up one spot short of the championship.
"I was trying not to overthink all the words, and I really did not think about the word I missed enough,” Betzen said. “It feels good to do better than last year, but I still did not get first."
He said when it was down to two contestants, he felt he had a good chance to win.
Betzen said that he would study harder words toward the back of the spelling guides. He attributes his unfettering confidence to acting in theater, saying that it really helps him work in front of a crowd of people.
“I just need to slow down and think about what I have studied instead of oversimplifying the process,” Betzen said. "I think today’s experience will help me for next year.”
Betzen has one more year of eligibility for the spelling bee.
His mom, Cristin Betzen, said that while she obviously pulled for him to win, she feels her son did a great job in the competition, which will make him better in the long run.
“I was so proud of him,” she said. “So much goes into this other than just spelling. He may have finished second, but you learn a lot more from your losses than you do from your wins. This will build on his character and for his future. There was no shame in losing to this young man.”
She said that they would take more time off from spelling for a while just to be invigorated when it came time to study.
“All outcomes are okay here,” Cristin Betzen said. “This builds character, vocabulary and life experience. All of this goes into forming the person he will become.”
Cristin Betzen said that this was her 32nd spelling bee as a parent, and she was impressed by the way today’s competition was run.
As the winner of the competition, Zheng will move on to the Scripps National Spelling Bee, to be held in National Harbour, Maryland, which is 11 miles from the nation's capital.
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Jayden Zheng wins regional spelling bee, follows brother's footsteps
