Santa Fe Prep seventh grader is state spelling bee W-I-N-N-E-R

Mar. 23—The day before the 77th annual New Mexico State Spelling Bee, Juliette Anderson asked her mom, "Do you think I'm going to make it through the first round?"

Those nerves were nowhere to be seen Saturday, when the seventh grader from Santa Fe Preparatory School coasted through several dozen rounds over about five hours.

While some other competitors fiddled with shirt sleeves, reacted to words with wide eyes, or tilted their heads to the ceiling as if looking for answers, Juliette barely paused before she spelled a series of words leading up to her championship-winning challenge, "vizierial." The adjective refers to the high executive officer of some Muslim countries, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

"I guess I'm surprised, but also excited," Juliette said with a smile after her win.

Hannah Li, a sixth grader at Mountain Elementary in Los Alamos, and Keith Lee, a seventh grader at Albuquerque Academy, took home the second- and third-place trophies.

Family members congratulated Juliette on a victory they called well-deserved.

"I've never seen anyone work as hard as she does," Juliette's mom, Jacqueline Davis, said, likening her daughter's focus to that of an Olympic athlete.

Last week, "she studied all day, all night," Davis said. "Just the drive, the dedication — she's amazing."

Twenty-five elementary and middle school students qualified for the state spelling bee out of roughly 4,000 spellers at schools across the state, judge Janice Jaramillo said.

Competitions begin at the classroom and school level during the fall. Winners then move on to district spelling bees, and a number of district champions — one for every five schools in a district — battle for a seat at the state bee via an online competition.

Judge Laurie Ocampo, who has participated in bees for years, said her favorite part is seeing kids get incredibly difficult words right.

"It just shows you how much they've studied, and I admire them," Ocampo said.

Many of Saturday's competitors said they've spent months studying a list of almost 5,000 possible words provided by the Scripps National Spelling Bee organization.

Joshua Bala, a seventh grader at Santa Fe's Mandela International Magnet School who made it into the final five contestants Saturday, estimated he has been studying for the bee for two hours a day, both at home and with his teachers.

"It's a fun experience, and it's ... an experience that rewards you later in life," said Joshua, who wants to become an aeronautical engineer.

Julia Zou, a 14-year-old from Los Alamos Middle School and an avid reader, said she has a "love-hate" relationship with words: Some are difficult to spell, but she loves learning their wacky definitions.

Juliette of Santa Fe Prep, who started competing in spelling bees in third grade, similarly said learning new words is one of her favorite parts of the process.

She has made a list of ones she wants to use in everyday life — like codswallop, meaning nonsense.

Juliette is the sole competitor from the state bee who will move on to the national competition in National Harbor, Md., in May. For nationals, she'll expand her studies to any word in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

She plans continue her methods of preparation that have worked so far, she said: going over words, making note cards and writing out anything she spells wrong 10 times.

"Whatever happens, happens," she said.