Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 2, 1995 TAG: 9506020107
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Jena Jamison, the Roanoke Times' representative in the 68th annual Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., blames her parents for the spelling of the family dog's name: D-A-W-G.
Jena, an eighth-grader at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Rocky Mount, also graciously - not to mention paradoxically - gives her attorney mom and real estate agent dad credit for her spelling ability.
Shirley Jamison, however, said her daughter reached the sixth elimination round of the national bee Thursday on her own. She was among the last 29 of the 247 spellers who started the competition, and was one little letter away from being in the last dozen.
The word that tripped her up was "hiemal." She spelled it "hiamal."
"It's got something to do with winter," Jena said. Close enough. "Of winter" is what Webster's New World Dictionary says. It's related to the word "hibernate."
Shirley Jamison said her daughter is a natural at phonetic spelling. Shirley would know. She named the dog, er, Dawg.
Jena said she knows plenty of words, too, but clearly her natural ability carried her in the finals.
Of the five words she spelled to get to the sixth round - "leporiform" (having the form of rabbits or hares), "sardonyx," "supplicate," "recrudescence" and "pejorative" - she knew only "sardonyx" and "supplicate" before today.
Justin Tyler Carroll, 14, an Arkansas eighth-grader, correctly spelled ``xanthosis'' - a discoloration of the skin - to win the spelling bee. He said it was one of the words he had studied.
``It's like a dream,'' Justin said of his win. ``It's just unreal.''
In the closing rounds, competitors dropped over such tongue-twisters as ``frugivorous'' (feeding on fruit) and ``smaragdine'' (yellowish green).
The children ranged in age from 9 to 15. Two were third-graders. Half were in the eighth grade - the cutoff.
Forty-five of the youths had competed in previous national competitions.
Only three 9-year-olds made it to the nationals. The last two, Jonathan Abel and Prem Murthy Trivedi, were eliminated Thursday in the fourth round.
Top prize was $5,000 in cash, a $1,000 savings bond, more than $2,000 in reference books and a hand-held electronic dictionary. Second- and third-place winners get $4,000 and $2,500, respectively.
As for Jena, she's pleased with her humble accomplishment and her reward of a night at the Planet Hollywood restaurant, one of a chain owned by actors Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"I really didn't expect to get that far," she said. She admits, though, that the competition got nerve-racking toward the end, when she began to think she had a chance of finishing well, if not winning.
Mom Shirley and dad J. Clark Jamison said Jena's finish wasn't bad at all.
"No it ain't," said Shirley. "And I use 'ain't' for emphasis."
The Associated Press contributed information to this story.
by CNB