Centennial seventh-grader crowned 2008 Yuma County Spelling Bee champ

It came down to Ariane Guthrie and Robert Steen, the last two contestants on stage Wednesday in the Yuma County Spelling Bee.

For a time in the final round, neither could eliminate the other, because each misspelled words.

Members of the audience were tense and silent, shuffling in their seats when they heard the judges' bell indicating another word was misspelled.

But then Steen was asked to spell a word he was familiar with: "R-O-T-T-W-E-I-L-E-R."

That word won the seventh-grader from Centennial Middle School the applause of the audience and the championship title of the 62nd annual Yuma County Spelling Bee.

When he was one of the last two, he began feeling "really really nervous," he recalled. "The words were getting much harder at the end and I thought I wasn't going to get first place but then the last couple of words I spelled right, those were words that I knew."

Forty-seven students from public, private and charter schools in Yuma County, ranging in grades four through eight, took part in the spelling contest organized by The Sun.

However, not all schools were able to participate in this year's contest because for the first time, schools were required to pay a fee to be enrolled in the National Spelling Bee program, said Karen Phillips, director of Newspapers In Education at The Sun. She said several schools did not register by deadline.

Steen will compete in the Arizona Educational Foundation Spelling Bee on March 29 in Tempe. The winner of the Arizona Spelling Bee will represent Arizona at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., in May.

Steen said taking part in the spelling bee has been a "cool" experience "because spelling words is really fun and the spelling bee is really fun."

After he won the spelling bee at his school, Steen began studying at home and reading "a lot" of books which helped him become familiar with new words, he said.

"When I came into this room, I didn't feel that nervous but right when I got on stage I saw how many there were and then I started getting nervous," Steen said.

His mom, Ranae Steen, said she was "excited" and "absolutely thrilled" for her son.

"Just to get up there on stage to spell as many words as he did correctly, that was wonderful," she said.

She congratulated all the students who participated for being "brave" for going on stage and competing.

Runner-up Guthrie said she didn't realize at first that it was just her and Steen competing for first place.

"When I heard I was just in the final two, I was happy. I didn't care if it went either way, really, ’cause I was just happy to be in the final two," said the 14-year-old.

Guthrie, an eighth-grader at Fourth Avenue Junior High, practiced spelling words each night with the help of her mom, Maria.

"She'd read me the words and I would say them and a lot times if I missed one, she'd give me helpful hints on how to remember the words, looking at the origin and root word and stuff," Guthrie said.

Her mother said, "I'm just so proud. It's nice to know that all the studying and all the hard work actually pays off."

She said she takes her daughter's second place as a "mixed blessing," since Guthrie will be performing with her ballet group the same day the state spelling bee takes place.

Her dad, Kim, said he "was probably more nervous than she was."

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Juana M. Gyek can be reached at

jgyek@yumasun.com or 539-6872.