Some people go to bed at night wishing upon the stars painted on their ceilings.
Not Clara Wicoff, the 2012 Kansas Sunflower Spelling Bee winner. She has words written on her bedroom ceiling.
“I have 3,500 words printed on the ceiling tiles in my bedroom. The words are in alphabetical order and I review them each night while lying in bed,” Wicoff said.
The five-time Allen County Spelling Bee champion secured the win in the 12th round last weekend at the Great Bend competition advancing her to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. This is her third win at the state level and final opportunity for the Iola Middle School eighth-grader to attend the national bee.
She said she has a list of accumulated words she studies on a regular basis along with a consolidated 23,000-word list published by Scripps.
Wicoff correctly spelled “toadyism” to take Saturday’s win from Michael Wilson, who is from Johnson County. Toadyism is the act of being a flatterer or toady. Eighty-seven participated in the spelling bee in Great Bend.
“I take my time when I go up to spell a word. I ask to have the word pronounced, for a definition, word origin and to have the word used in a sentence before I begin spelling,” she said.
OTHER PREPARATIONS include study pals via the Internet program Skype and emails. Wicoff regularly Skypes with Lucas Urbanski, who she met at the national meet, and emails other winners who list new words for her to study.
“I’m am looking forward to seeing my friend, Nicholas Rushlow, who I met last year at the meet. He won his state title again in Ohio. This is Nicholas’ fifth year to compete at the national level,” she said.
For the competitions, Wicoff said she is superstitious. She wears three necklaces, a bracelet, earrings, hair clips and one particular pair of shoes. She also carries photos of her other good luck charms on her cell phone.
Unlike many of the participants at the national level who study up to eight hours a day for the spelling bee, Wicoff chooses to participate in other activities.
She will be going to the state Geography Bee in April in Abilene. Other school activities include Scholars Bowl, choir, cheerleading, dance and working as the manager for the track team. She also squeezes in time to attend her Prairie Dell 4-H Club meetings.
For her first-place win on Saturday she received a trip to the national bee for herself and one parent, a championship trophy, an overnight stay at Cheyenne Bottoms Inn and Suites in Hoisington, a Kindle Touch and case from the Charles H. Morris Award of Excellence, $20 Amazon.com gift certificate, Samuel Sugarman Award certificate and prize, Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary and a one-year subscription to Encyclopedia Britannica online.
WICOFF WILL be accompanied to Washington, D.C., in May by her parents, Joel and Lisa, and her three brothers, Isaiah, 12, Henry, 9, and Luke 6.
“It was originally just going to be Clara, her father and me that were going to the national bee, but I couldn’t take the disappointment in my sons’ eyes when they thought they weren’t going,” said Lisa Wicoff.
At the national meet Wicoff will be speller number 91 out 277 participants. She said she will be studying hard to make it to the finals, saying, “I want to be on TV.”
