Wylie student Tessa Jones makes a beeline for Scripps National Spelling Bee on Tuesday

Tessa Jones really likes the way the word "acquiesce" sounds.

But its usage, "to accept something reluctantly, but without protest," is one she hopefully won't have to make use of when she competes in the 2022 Scripps National Spelling Bee starting on Tuesday.

Ideally, the 14-year-old Wylie Independent School District student won't have to yield to any her more than 240 rivals when she competes in what's effectively the Super Bowl of spelling in Washington, D.C.

Jones, who's slated to start at Wylie High School in the fall, admitted she always has been "really good at memorizing things."

When she was younger, she easily gravitated to spelling in UIL competitions.

"It was natural for me," she said, starting out her journey in 3rd grade.

Further success came in school bees. Starting in 5th grade, she got second place for multiple years in a row.

"And then, in 8th grade, I won," she said. "That's when I went to the regional one, and I won that one. Now I'm going to nationals."

Jones will start with semifinal competition uesday.

If she progresses, she make it to the televised bee Thursday.

It's not her first trip to the nation's capital, having traveled there on spring break.

But she's ready to return — and ready to spell with literally the best of them.

Tips and tricks

There are admittedly some pretty "crazy" words in a spelling bee competition of Scripps' caliber, and it takes more than a bit of work to cram them all into one's brain, Jones said.

Writing them down does help with memorization, but essentially, it's just "going over them all the time," Jones said.

With some words, definitions help. With others, it's patterns.

"Plenty of rocks and minerals end in -ite," Jones said, as one example.

Different pronunciations, especially those which "fit in all the letters," can help, she said.

Knowing what's usually easy — and what's, most often, a bit harder — also is vital.

Chinese-derived words often include certain letters "really often," Jones said as opposed to Australian and New Zealand-derived terms, which are typically "really simple."

"With Chinese words, they have a lot of Xs and things," she said.

One more secret weapon: Sometimes it's easier, at least for Jones, to spell words using a British accent, though that's probably more of an inside voice stratagem, rather than one to pull out in front of judges.

The path forward

Melissa Jones, her mother, said she's proud of her daughter — and of all the work her father, Collin Jones, has put in to help her.

"(Tessa's) always been a really good student,' she said "She's excelled in academics, they come easy to her most of the time. And so, I think she just kind of liked the challenge of spelling, and she liked competition. So, it's a good fit for her."

A bit humble, Tessa Jones said she'd received a "lot of grace to get this far."

Her mom agreed, but also praised her daughter's dedication.

"I think she's been studying spelling words since October," Melissa Jones said. "It's been pretty much a daily activity for her. So, just to have that commitment and to want to succeed, she's going to do well and we're excited for her."

Tessa said she studies in school when she has free time, and on her way to weekend soccer games in Dallas.

And she and Collin Jones regularly spend about 45 minutes working on her spelling game.

"They have to do a vocabulary portion, so she has to know what the words mean on top of knowing how to spell them," Melissa Jones said. "So, (her) dad has been involved in trying to write quick definitions, while she does all the studying of the spelling. So, it's been a team effort."

Spelling is, obviously, a big part of the Jones family, but that doesn't mean everyone hooked.

Little sister Megyn Jones, 8, has — so far — not appeared to catch the spelling bug.

"I don't know if spelling's going to be her thing," Melissa Jones said. "She's more of the energetic, athletic kind."

"A social butterfly," Tessa said.

Sounds like a job for a l-e-p-i-d-o-p-t-e-r-i-s-t.

Brian Bethel covers city and county government and general news for the Abilene Reporter-News. If you appreciate locally driven news, you can support local journalists with a digital subscription to ReporterNews.com.

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Wylie student Tessa Jones makes a beeline for National Spelling Bee