Nineteen hopeful spellers took to the stage at the Orcas Christian School on Jan. 28 to take their chances at a plethora of words. Orcas Island Public School, OASIS and Orcas Christian School all participated in the bee. There were 19 students who competed to become the winner. Nita Couchman, Steve Diepenbrock and Cathy Faulkner moderated the event.

Early words that were confidently spelled included minnow, trumpet, ballad, dandelion, veteran and skirmish. Words that presented trouble were sesame, paunch, debilitate, counterfeit, noctambulist and technocrat. Within 45 minutes the 19 students were reduced to ten contestants with winning words like cygnet, ignominious and whippoorwill. Words that proved daunting induced mellifluous, heuristic and doubloon. When only seven spellers were left, terms like neophyte, Rorschach, carte blanche and nihilism had the audience cheering. The mis-spelling of persevered, brocade, emphatically, unmitigable and somnipathy reduced the students to only two. Benjamin Pollard, last year’s winner, and Joe Reigel went head to head for eight rounds. Words that could not be spelled included rosacea, camelopard, campanile and transcutaneous.

When Benjamin missed flagellatory, Joe had a chance to win the whole bee with the word cryonics. After spelling the winning word correctly, Joe smiled broadly and accepted the trophy. The 14-year-old also won a Kindle Fire HD and a chance to compete in the state regional spelling bee. The winner of the regional spelling bee will receive an all expenses paid trip to participate in the national spelling bee.

After the bee, Joe admitted that he had only studied for a couple of weeks. In regard to winning he said he felt, “A-okay.”

His mother, Beth Reigel, described her son as a “man of few words.”

She was proud of his accomplishment recalling that as a fifth grader she lost a spelling bee with the word lettuce.