Our Lady of Guadalupe R.C. student wins Spelling Bee
One of its students topped the PSE and today another student from Our Lady of Guadalupe R.C. in Belmopan edged out the competition and won the National Spelling Bee. After rounds of preliminary competition at the district level, the showdown took place at the Belize Elementary Auditorium in Belize City. At midday after the third round, an eleven year old student became this year’s best speller. Duane Moody was there in the final moments of the competition.
Duane Moody, Reporting
An excited Christopher Castillo took the gold at the fifteenth National Spelling Bee Competition. According to Castillo, he has been competing for the past three years but had not made it to finals until today and he emerged the winner. Castillo won with the word ‘kukri’.
Duane Moody
“How does it feel to have won?”
Christopher Castillo, Winner, 15th National Spelling Bee
“Wow that’s all I can say. I really didn’t study much, but I studied hard.”
Duane Moody
“How long did it take you guys to train and prepare for this event?”
Corlan Galvez, Teacher, Our Lady of Guadalupe R.C. School
“Well, not really long. We studied different hours of the day. He get a lot of training at home also.”
Duane Moody
“What advice is it that you have for people who might want to do what you do?”
Christopher Castillo
“I suggest that they just read a lot. I’ve been reading since before preschool but that really doesn’t change anything. Just if you have something to read, don’t hesitate.”
Duane Moody
“What did you get from winning this competition?”
Christopher Castillo
“A bigger vocabulary.”
Coming in second was Erwin Sedacy of the Libertad Seventh Day Adventist School who lost to Castillo with the word ‘conscientious’.
Duane Moody
“You just placed second in the national spelling bee. How does it feel?”
Erwin Sedacy, 2nd Place Winner, 15th National Spelling Bee
“Exciting, good. I studied for about a week—the reserve and the list of course.”
Aaron Magana of the Calcutta Seventh Day Adventist School settled for third place. Bowen and Bowen and the Ministry of Education were generous with incentives for participating schools.
E. Jahmor Lopez, Manager, Belize District Education Centre
“Bowen and Bowen and Coca Cola they do offer quite a bit of prize, lucrative prizes; computer, laptops. I think even the winning school gets to walk away with a special prize, they give cash prizes. The ministry also chips in by offering book scholarships, tuition scholarships.”
Manager of the Belize District Education Centre, E. Jahmor Lopez, says the competition is another way of enriching knowledge.
E. Jahmor Lopez
“It’s a way of motivating our students—providing an incentive to say that if you excel in a particular area whether it might be sports, whether it be the expressive arts or in the academic area in terms of being a good speller or a good mathematician we want to recognize those students and reward them for that—for their hard work and dedication.”
Some schools also received prizes for the most creative banners.
E. Jahmor Lopez
“We use to notice that many schools would come in with their banners and I think we started that competition—if it wasn’t last year it would have been two years ago and we encouraged these schools to encourage their students to express themselves through visual arts and they prepared their banners. There were specific criteria that they used and I believe the Toledo District, a school from the Toledo won that prize. So, we also gave a prize to the school and the students who were able to express themselves through the visual arts.”
In the banner competition, Toledo Christian Academy, took first prize when Calcutta Seventh Day Adventist also took second for this area of the competition. Duane Moody, reporting for News Five.
