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Happening ... in the Local Church
 Gina
Solomito won the Marion County Regional Spelling Bee in March. (Photo
provided) |
By Kevin Cullen
The
Catholic Moment
FISHERS — Don’t ever think you can outspell 12-year-old Gina Solomito.
You can’t.
A member of St. John Vianney Parish in Fishers, the homeschooled seventh-grader from Indianapolis won the 2008 Marion County Regional Spelling Bee, then competed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.
In March, she won the regional crown again, and another expenses-paid trip to Washington. After some sightseeing with her parents, she will compete against more than 270 of the country’s top spellers in the 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee June 2-4.
The winner gets $30,000 cash, a $5,000 scholarship, $3,800 in reference materials, $2,500 in U.S. Savings Bonds, and a trophy. Every speller in the finals is awarded a cash prize of $100 to $12,500, depending on how far he advances, plus a commemorative watch.
“You have to have some talent to do it, but talent only gets you so far,” said Gina, the daughter of Al and Michelle Solomito. “You have to work at it.”
Gina, who has one sister and three brothers, was reading shortly after her fourth birthday. Her mother taught her phonics for several years, but when it comes to spelling Gina clearly has something “extra.”
“She has a strong sense that a large part of this is a gift from God,” said Mrs. Solomito, a former nurse.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee, launched in 1925, is the nation’s largest and longest-running educational promotion. It is administered by the E.W. Scripps Company, with local sponsors across the United States, U.S. possessions and Department of Defense schools in many foreign countries.
Contestants practice spelling more than 25,000 words that have been used at Scripps National Spelling Bees over the last 50 years. A few of the mind-bending selections from past lists include: meticulosity, eudaemonic, ratoon, elucubrate, odontalgia, logorrhea and succedaneum.
Word lists and study materials are issued by Scripps headquarters in Cincinnati. The winners in the local spelling bees then proceed to the national competition.
Gina has only one year of eligibility left, because the events are open only to students who have not yet passed beyond the eighth grade, or marked their 14th birthday.
Mrs. Solomito said that Gina began competing in spelling bees when she was in kindergarten. She always won. Through the years, her vocabulary blossomed, and as her memory developed so did her ability to spell almost any word given to her.
“We just kind of discovered that she was really good,” Mrs. Solomito said. “At 8, she was in a spelling bee with 13- and 14-year-olds, spelling words they couldn’t spell.”
Gina’s passion for words was encouraged by Mrs. Solomito and her husband, who is an emergency room physician. Both of them work with her and support her.
Her father, who works nights, “has learned a lot from helping me” with spelling, Gina said.
“She is somewhat shy around adults, but she easily makes friends with children her own age,” her mother said. “This has given her confidence and self-esteem. She has a quiet confidence about her ability.”
Like other girls her age, Gina loves to read, do gymnastics, ride her bicycle, go on walks and bounce on a trampoline. But she also has the discipline and perseverance needed to compete against some of the best young spellers in the country.
She spends about an hour a day on her word lists in the summer, two hours a day in the fall, three hours a day before sectionals, and from four to five hours a day before the nationals.
Again and again, she reviews word lists and studies prefixes, suffixes and roots. She memorizes words of various languages; her knowledge of Latin and Greek roots allows her to figure out how to spell unfamiliar words.
“Each language has its own pattern. I am studying Latin and Spanish in school,” Gina said. “… It’s about studying, learning and memorizing.”
She was one of the younger contestants in the national finals two years ago. She was 10 then, and the minimum age was 9.
The regional winners receive expenses-paid trips to Washington with an accompanying adult, but “I am taking both of my parents,” Gina said.
If she wins, she said, “I will put most of it into savings.”
She said she feels nervous before a bee starts, but after she takes the stage, “I’m fine.”
Good sportsmanship is evident.
“We definitely are friendly to each other,” she said. “If someone gets a word right, we clap silently. When it gets down to the final two or three, there is a little more tension.”
Gina hopes to someday be a physicist or a biological scientist. She said that years of spelling competitions have helped her spell and understand many scientific terms.
To Gina, “it’s OK to be smart,” Mrs. Solomito said, and it’s fun to compete for prizes and trips.
“When she’s up there, she’s so composed,” she said. “She doesn’t seem nervous at all.”