Perfect to the letter

Ian Quick of Gila Vista Junior High may not know exactly what it means to be a logistician, and it doesn't really matter. All that matters is he knew how to spell that word when the pressure was on.

Doing so earned him the 2004 Yuma County Spelling Bee title and a trip to the Arizona Spelling Bee, March 27 in Tempe.

The 58th annual spelling bee, held Tuesday morning at the Yuma Civic and Convention Center, came down to the wire, with Quick, an eighth-grader, and Travis Caley, a fifth-grader from Rolle School, the only ones still standing after four rounds.

To decide the competition at that point, Quick and Caley would each be given a new word until one or the other misspelled one. The other speller would then be given a chance to correctly spell the word. If that speller did so he would then be required to spell another word to win the title. However, if he misspelled the final word, the other speller would get a chance to correctly spell it. If he did so, then he would win the title. If both finalists misspelled the word, the competition would continue.

The first word the finalists were given was "contiguous." Caley got the first crack at it.

"Contiguous," he said. "C-o-n-t-i-g-o-u-s. Contiguous."

Caley's spelling was met with the dreaded "ding" sound, which meant he had misspelled it.

Quick then stepped up to the microphone.

"Contiguous. C-o-n-t-i-g-u-o-u-s. Contiguous." He looked at the judges hopefully. No ding. He got it.

The last word he had to spell to win the title was "logistician."

He took a deep breath. "Logistician. L-o-g-i-s-t-i-c-i-a-n. Logistician," he said.

Quick received confirmation from the judges and was crowned the champion.

He was surprised because he had only studied about one or two days for the competition, he said. When asked if he was a natural at spelling, he shrugged and said, "I guess so."

Quick said the words were more difficult than he had anticipated.

"They were a lot harder," he said.

The hardest one, he said, was the last one - logistician.

Caley, meanwhile, was thrilled with the second-place finish.

"The words were tough, but the last one (contiguous) was the hardest," he said.

In fact, Caley had never even heard of the word, so he was just trying to sound it out, he said.

"I just missed the 'u,' " he said.

Caley said if he had gotten a crack at logistician he would have nailed it.

"I was spelling it in my head when he was spelling it, and I got it right," he said.

The words Caley spelled to get to the final round were "squadron," "cement," "panic" and "triceratops." Quick's words were "vintage," "curtail," "wok" and "precipice."

Both Quick and Caley received plaques for placing first and second in the competition, which was sponsored by The Sun. It was both students' first time competing in the county-level spelling bee.

Forty-six students from grades four through eight competed in the spelling bee this year. Each advanced to the county competition by winning their individual school spelling bees.

All competitors received a thesaurus and T-shirt. Competitors, their coaches and welcomed guests were also treated to a buffet lunch courtesy of The Sun.

The Bee's pronouncer was Peggy Lund, director of family and community support services for Yuma Elementary School District 1.

"I was glad to see so many kids represented by public schools, charters, private, parochial, home schooled...It was a great showing of kids," she said. "It was also nice to see how many parents were there. I believe that room was standing room only."

Lund said it was enjoyable yet nerve-racking pronouncing for the first time.

"I was anxious because I wanted to do a good job so the kids could do a good job," she said. "I spent my weekend with my nose in that book pronouncing all the words. I think they had a very good mix of words from different backgrounds and different levels of complication. It gave the kids an opportunity to do their best."

Lund said she particularly enjoyed watching the kids and the way they approached some of the more difficult words.

"Some were more serious and some were comfortably silly with it," she said.

The judges were Terry Ross, editor of The Sun; Cherylholly Baron, 2004 Yuma County Teacher of the Year; and Randy Hoeft, managing editor of The Sun.

For anyone who missed it, a taping of the 2004 Yuma County Spelling Bee will be aired on Channel 74 Friday and Sunday at 9 a.m. this weekend and next.