
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 7, 1991                   TAG: 9104070112
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`BACCIFEROUS' LUCKY WORD FOR SPELLING-BEE WINNER/ BY DAVID M. POOLE/ STAFF

After the eighth round, the field at the 1991 Regional Spelling Bee had narrowed to a pair of 13-year-olds: Shabnam Gideon of Botetourt County and Crockett Ian Henley of Radford.

For the next eight rounds, the girl and boy took their best shots at 10-dollar words like "hauberk," "disembogue" and "nidifugous."

Gideon and Henley were like two tennis players who run, swing and grunt - but keep coming back to deuce.

Henley twice had Gideon on the verge of elimination, only to stumble on "dissilient" and "thalassic."

Just when it appeared that no one would win, Gideon was asked to spell "megacephalic," which means "having cranial capacity in excess of the mean: large-headed."

She missed, mistakenly putting a "y" after the first "c."

Henley strode to the microphone in his Reebok high-tops, bomber pants and sweater.

The seventh-grader from Dalton Intermediate School nailed "megacephalic" and went on to clinch the regional crown by spelling b-a-c-c-i-f-e-r-o-u-s.

Henley flashed a grin to his mother, seated among parents at the Airport Sheraton ballroom and turned to shake Gideon's hand.

Later, Henley seemed amazed that he had outlasted the 17 contestants representing school districts from around the region.

"I couldn't pronounced half of the words in the first place," he said.

Henley, the son of Jeanne Henley, won a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica and a weeklong trip to the National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C., courtesy of the Roanoke Times & World-News.

Other top finishers were:

Second place - Gideon, daughter of Mrs. Lawrence Onan and a student at Botetourt Intermediate. She received an unabridged Random House Dictionary.

Third place - Pamela Lynn McGhee, 11, daughter of Tom and Joyce McGhee and a student at Chilhowie Elementary School in Smyth County. She received a Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

Fourth place - Lindsay Kramer, 11, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Kramer and a student at New London Academy in Bedford County. She received a hard-cover copy of the 1991 World Almanac.

All 17 contestants received trophies for being the top speller in their respective school divisions.

For the record, bacciferous is an adjective that describes a plant that bears fruit in the form of berries.

by CNB