By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
For Kendall Mehl, spelling D-E-C-L-A-M-A-T-O-R-Y earned her a spot in the Scripps National Spelling Bee that starts Tuesday (May 28) in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
Kendall, a 12-year-old sixth grader at Otsego Junior High School, spelled “horticulture” correctly to win her school spelling bee earlier this year before competing in the regional contest at the Maumee Indoor Theater in March. There she successfully spelled “declamatory” for the win against an eighth grader.
Last year, she competed in the regional competition as a fifth grader and didn’t win. Determined to do her best to make it back to the regionals this year, she practiced diligently with a goal of winning her school bee and the regional bee to move on to the national bee.
With a year of spelling bee experience behind her, she is excited to travel to Washington, D.C., with her parents, Andrew and Jessica Mehl.
She is contestant number 178 out of 245 in the national bee and one of only 46 12-year-olds. She joins 16 other Ohio students in the national contest and is the only 12-year-old from the state. Over the course of the national bee, Ohio has had nine national champions, the second best record behind Texas’s 18 champions.
Kendall’s practice schedule consists of about an hour each day studying the ascending levels of word difficulties—from One Bee to Three Bee, with the Three Bee words being the most difficult, and often words that neither she nor her parents are familiar with. Because the preliminary rounds of the competition focus on Three Bee words, those are the pages she studies the most.
“For the words we don’t know, we have to look them up, see what they mean and how to say them,” she said. Occasionally she is happy to find familiar words on the Three Bee list, like “pachyderm” and “quokka,” but sometimes words like “Tegucigalpa,” the capital of Honduras, can stump her.
They have also picked up on some of the patterns with French words with “fancy vowels like au jus that has a weird pronunciation,” Kendall said.
Because she considers herself a visual learner with a good memory, she carefully looks over the words, connects the meaning with the word and sees the words in her head. Once she is comfortable with her daily page of words, her mother or father quiz her. If she successfully spells all of them, she can be done for the day. Any words she misses, she spends a little more time reviewing the missed words.
Kendall believes her gift of being able to spell words and understand vocabulary is directly related to her voracious reading habit. Though the family frequents the local library, Kendall’s bedroom bookshelves are lined with 200 books, further attesting to her love of reading.
“She has a true passion for reading. If she’s not at school, playing volleyball in junior high or the trombone in the junior high band, she’s probably in her room cuddled up reading,” her mother said. “She was pretty young when she was reading chapter books, progressing with her older sister Charis.”
Frequent visitors to the library, Kendall’s current reading favorites include fantasy, “especially high fantasy, mythology, science fiction and a little romance,” Kendall said. She devours author Rick Riordan’s books, including the complete series of Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus, Trials of Apollo and The Demigod Files. She recently started The Kane Chronicles and The Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard.
Kendall’s first year at regionals competing against seventh and eighth graders was nerve-wracking. This year, she was confident and nonplussed as one of the youngest competitors.
She will carry that confidence into the national competition. Her goal this year is “to make it as far as I can,” she said. “I want to get a scope of what it’s like and try to make it back next year to go for the Top 50.” She has two more years of eligibility, through eighth grade.
This year, she is most excited about visiting Washington, D.C., and meeting the other contestants and maybe learning some of the secrets of the top competitors. The Blade, which hosted the northwest Ohio regional competition, sponsors the trip to the national competition.
We are excited for her. It’s cool to see your kid do something that they thrive at,” her mother said. “She’s excited about going to D.C. I think it will be amazing to meet all the other exceptional children and make some friendships.”
Outside of spelling, reading, volleyball and band, Kendall’s favorite color is purple and her favorite spelling word is “opaque,” because it is “just a fun word to spell,” she said.
Kendall also loves to cook, play Legend of Zelda, fish, and play with the family’s two dogs, a mini poodle and a labradoodle. The dogs even inspired “The Man, The Wolf and The Wood,” a winning ballad she wrote for the Grand Rapids Arts Council poetry contest.
“I like writing. I am better at storytelling, so I wanted to write a ballad, fable-esque about how man and wolf fought until they learned the benefit of being friends,” she said.
Watch the spelling bee
The preliminary rounds will be livestreamed on ION or spellingbee.com starting Tuesday (May 28) from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Kendall’s group is to be on stage from 2-4 p.m.
The quarterfinals and semifinals are on Wednesday (May 29), running from 8 a.m. to 12:45 and 2:30-6:30 p.m., respectively.
The finals will air live during primetime on ION and spellingbee.com from 8-10 p.m. on Thursday (May. 30).
