It took five rounds and two hours to get to the final two spellers at Saturday’s 2025 Eastern Shore Regional Spelling Bee.
It would take another 16 rounds and more than 30 minutes to determine a champion as Wicomico Middle School seventh grader Megan Barrientos and Bennett Middle School eighth grader Alexander Brown endured a gauntlet of exacting words March 1 to see who would represent the Lower Eastern Shore at this spring’s Scripps National Spelling Bee.
With the spelling of the word “besieged,” Barrientos was able to punch her ticket to the May preliminary final competition in Washington, D.C., prevailing against 47 other spellers from Dorchester, Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester counties at the University of Eastern Shore’s (UMES) Ella Fitzgerald Performing Arts Center.
“I’m really shocked, but I’m excited to tell my family that I won,” said Barrientos, 13. “I don’t know if the reality has hit me that I’ve won.”
The first two spelling rounds saw 30 competitors eliminated before the field was culled by another eight in round three. In the third round, spellers had to determine which of the two definitions given accurately defined a given word.
The spelling resumed in round four as three more spellers exited before the field was narrowed from six to just Barrientos and Brown following round five.
From rounds six to 18, both spellers were flawless as they accurately nailed terms such as “caducity,” “rebarbative,” “leviathan,” and “codswallop.”
“Since this was my last bee, I wanted to go out with a bang and try my best to get where I did,” said the 14-year-old Brown, also a 2023 bee co-runner-up. “Being on this stage for three years in a row showed me that I could do anything I put my mind to as long as I keep trying.”
Barrientos said while she is still in shock over the win, she knows what her next step is.
“It’s going to be a new experience,” she said. “I’ll be practicing a lot more as this is much bigger in magnitude.”
This year’s judges were:
- Dr. Urban Wiggins—vice provost for Decision Science and Visualization at UMES
- Dr. Amy Hagenrater-Gooding, professor of English and Modern Languages at UMES
- Diamond Nwaeze, 4-H STEM youth development educator at UMES-Extension
Dr. Kate Brown, professor and interim chair of the Department of Business, Management, and Accounting at UMES, was the Bee’s announcer.
Earl Holland, director of Public Relations at UMES, served as the emcee and transcriber.
In addition to representing the Lower Eastern Shore at the Scripps National Spelling Bee preliminaries May 27, Barrientos receives:
- A one-year membership to Britannica Online Premium;
- A one-year subscription to the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Online Dictionary;
- The Samuel Louis Sugarman Award, 2025 U.S. Mint Proof Set;
- A custom-made Champion’s trophy;
- And an all-expenses-paid trip to the 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee and a six-night stay at the Gaylord National Resort.
The next phase of the Scripps National Spelling Bee takes place with the preliminaries on May 27th and concludes with the finals on May 29th.
