Standing on stage at the state spelling bee is a heck of a place to be hit with a turducken.
“Turducken?” Caledonia Middle School seventh-grader David Heyman asked. Heyman, one of 22 students competing in the Mississippi Spelling Bee at the Mississippi University for Women Saturday morning, clearly had no idea what had just been thrown at him.
“Turducken,” confirmed bee pronouncer Thomas Easterling.
Heyman – who would go on to be one of two co-champions at the end of the event – took his best shot, and got it right.
Parents, grandparents, sundry family members, teachers and well-wishers of all stripes crowded into Poindexter Hall to watch the best of Mississippi’s spellers go head-to-head. It was quite a morning, with six eliminated in the first round, and one in the second and six in the third.
The students who were left braved weird linguistic collisions, culinary abominations and an increasingly familiar warning: “This word is a homonym, and may be confused with another word.”
Every fifth round, rather than spelling a word, contestants had to choose the correct definition in a multiple-choice format.
Eventually, there were three spellers left: Heyman and Starkville Academy sixth-grader Evan McClelland from the Golden Triangle, and state bee veteran Azariah Green, a sixth-grader from Hernando Middle School in DeSoto County.
McClelland got tripped up in round 11, leaving Heyman and Green to square off.
The two went back-and-forth, with neither emerging with a clear advantage, for five more rounds. The state was set for a round 17, but Bee Director Lois Kappler called a huddle with the judges that ended with both contestants being declared co-champion.
“This is the best part of the competition,” Kappler said as she made the announcement. “The only difference is the (second-place) trophy is just a little bit shorter. We’re going to let (Green) take the first-place trophy, and I’m going to deliver (Heyman’s) trophy as soon as it comes in next week.”
Heyman said it was his first time to make it to the state level.
“There were a lot more words this time than there were at the other levels, and it was a lot of studying,” Heyman said.
Heyman said he used to live in the Washington, DC area and was looking forward to returning. His father is in the Air Force, and was transferred to Columbus Air Force Base about a year and a half ago.
Green, for his part, had been at the state level before, competing in 2022.
“I made it to the second round then,” Green said. “It was pretty good this time. I was a little bit nervous, but not too nervous.”
Both winners will go to compete at the Scripps National Spelling Bee Week, May 26-31,
in National Harbor, Maryland. The television broadcast schedule is available at spellingbee.com beginning May 1. Round-by-round results will be available in real time on the website for each round of the national competition.
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
