Megan Barrientos, an eighth grader at Wicomico Middle School, claimed her second consecutive Maryland Eastern Shore Regional Spelling Bee title on Saturday.
Barrientos, who clinched the competition by spelling the word “mythopoeic,” was the first back-to-back winner since Gia Bautista – also a student at Wicomico Middle School – won the event in 2014 and 2015. The second-place speller was Jazz Johnson, a fourth grader from North Salisbury Elementary School.
“This was a surreal moment and one I wasn’t expecting to happen,” Barrientos, 14, said. “Coming into the bee as the defending champion felt a lot like last year. I didn’t put a lot of pressure on myself after already winning the year before.”
Barrientos, who dueled 16 rounds to win her first title a year ago, earned her second crown in eight rounds during the event held at the Ella Fitzgerald Center for the Performing Arts on the University of Maryland Eastern Shore campus.
The field for this year’s event comprised 43 elementary and middle school students from public and private schools in Dorchester, Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester counties.
The first and second rounds each saw nine spellers dismissed, before switching to two oral vocabulary lines that eliminated another nine competitors. Rounds five and six saw another six eliminations each, bringing the field to four heading into the seventh round.
Barrientos and Johnson were the last standing going into round eight, where the former correctly spelled “lobectomy” and the championship word.
For winning the regional bee, Barrientos receives an all-expenses-paid trip to the 101st Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., which takes place during the week of May 24-29.
Barrientos, who reached the semifinal round of last year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee, said her prior experience in the national competition will be beneficial for her.
For Johnson, who could have up to four more opportunities to take home first place in the event, he said he looks to enter next year’s bee with a calmer demeanor.
“It felt so nerve-wracking that I felt like I was going to fall out of the chair,” he said. “Once I stopped focusing on how many people were out in the audience, I felt I was in my zone.”
This year’s judges were:
- Dr. Urban Wiggins—vice provost for Decision Science and Visualization at UMES
- Diamond Nwaeze, 4-H STEM youth development educator at UMES-Extension
- Dr. Cynthia Cravens, interim chair of the Department of English, Languages, and Media Studies and the director of the Center for Teaching Excellence
Dr. Amy Hagenrater, professor and associate chair of the Department of English, Languages, and Media Studies at UMES, was the Bee’s announcer.
Earl Holland Jr., director of Public Relations at UMES, served as the emcee and transcriber.
