This news came into the Tribune:
Raymie Humbert, an eighth grade student at Kyrene del Pueblo Middle School in Chandler, too second place in Saturday’s state spelling bee championship. Peoria’s So-Young Chung took the title. Her prize package includes an all-expense paid trip to Washington D.C. for her and one chaperone for the week of the Spelling Bee, compliments of the Bee’s presenting sponsor US Airways. She will also receive a 60-volume set of The Great Books of the Western World from Harrison Middleton University, a $100 Savings Bond, a one-year subscription to Encyclopedia Britannica online, $500.00 and Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. The Arizona Educational Foundation’s (AEF) State Spelling Bee was held Saturday, March 28, at Eight/Arizona PBS in Stauffer Hall at Arizona State University. So-Young is in seventh grade at Terramar Elementary School in Peoria.
So-Young out-spelled 26 other students with the winning word solecism in the 15th round of the Bee. (Solecism [sol-uh-siz-uhm] an ungrammatical combination of words in a sentence). So-Young will represent Arizona at the 82nd Annual Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. from May 26-28.
The third- through fifth-place finalists were: 3rd Place: Jim Denker, 8th grade, Christian Home Educators of Tucson, Tucson; 4th Place: Hannah Fechter, 7th grade, Alhambra Traditional School, Phoenix; 5th Place: David Joe, 8th grade, White Cliffs Middle School, Kingman.
This was the 10th year the Arizona Educational Foundation sponsored the Arizona Spelling Bee. The 2009 Arizona State Spelling Bee will air on Eight/Arizona PBS Channel 8 at 5 p.m. Sunday, April 12; 11 p.m. Wednesday, April 15 and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 19. The National Bee will be broadcast live on ESPN and ABC.
