Going out of town for a spell

Danette Goulet

COSTA MESA -- All she wanted was one of those little trophies they hand

out for participating. So Brittany Cornelius was flabbergasted when

instead she went home with a $100 savings bond and an all-expenses-paid

trip to Washington, D.C. to compete in the 73rd annual Scripps Howard

National Spelling Bee competition.

On March 4, the 13-year-old beat out 225 competitors in grades 6-8 at the

Orange County Spelling Bee.

“It really hit me when it was down to two of us,” she said. “I realized I

would at least get second place and I knew that was $250. It was a

win-win situation for me.”

This spelling whirlwind Brittany finds herself in began when her English

teacher Terri Foster asked students who felt they could compete to come

forward.

Although there wasn’t a big preliminary spelling bee at Ensign

Intermediate School where Brittany is in the eighth grade, she did

compete against 12 other students for the honor of moving on to the

county level.

Brittany attributes her knack for spelling to a lifelong love of reading.

Her success in the county competition was just good fortune.

“I just kept getting lucky in the words,” she said. “I won with the word

taupe. My friend Diane got susurrant -- and she only missed it by one

letter.”

But the key to Brittany’s talents may be more than the number of books

she’s read -- it could be a hereditary factor. All the women in

Brittany’s family are excellent spellers, while the male family members

lack that particular trait.

Cherrill Baldwin, grandmother to the spelling champion, said she was

always a great speller, winning her share of spelling bees in grade

school, as was her daughter, her mother, her aunt and now her

granddaughter.

Her son, father and husband, on the other hand, were quite the opposite.

No matter where her granddaughters gift came from, Baldwin crosses her

fingers when Brittany competes, in hopes that she gets the “easy” words.

“I just prayed every time she got up there that she would get a decent

word,” Baldwin said.

Baldwin will be along to pray once again, when Brittany hits Washington,

D.C. May 28 to June 3 for sightseeing and a chance to capture the title

of National Spelling Bee champion.

But once again as Brittany enters into the competitive fray, she does so

without the expectations of taking the top spot, humbly saying it would

be a fluke if she did.

This time, she’s not in it for the trophy -- she’s just excited about a

free trip to Washington, D.C.