Isabel Jacobson National Spelling Bee Roundup

• Audrey Hoffer:

  The silence crackled in a downtown hotel Thursday as Isabel A. Jacobson, an eighth-grader from Madison and the sole Wisconsin entrant to the Scripps National Spelling Bee, enunciated "c-y-a-n-o-p-h-y-t-i-o-n."

  Ping, the telltale final bell. Shoulders shrugging helplessly. Applause.

  Misspelling the word cyanophycean, Isabel, the last girl in the group of five finalists, dropped out in Round 9, tying for third place. Cyanophycean is a blue-green alga.

  "I feel great but kind of sad because it was my last spelling bee, and I'll never be up on the stage again," said Isabel, 14.

  "I'm not shocked that she's done this well," said Jeff Kirsch, her tutor. "Luck is a factor, as is skill. But she studied and she's smart - the last surviving girl."

• Gena Kittner:

  he nation now knows what Madison has long understood — Isabel Jacobson can kick some spelling derri?re.

  Isabel, 14, made her prime-time television spelling debut Thursday night at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, correctly spelling the French word epaulement, but later slipping up on cyanophycean and ultimately tying for third.

  Isabel, an eighth-grader at O'Keeffe Middle School, was the only female speller by the end of Round 8 in a competition that went 13 rounds.

• Elissa Silverman:

  One was only 11 and the oldest topped out at 14, but many of these kids had been here before. They knew the white-hot intensity of the competition, the absurdity of some of the words they were being asked to spell on national television and the warm applause that inevitably burst from the crowd when they got them right.

  Most of the 15 finalists in this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee were a seasoned crew. And that, in the end, might have helped propel Evan M. O'Dorney, 13, who has taken to eating tuna sandwiches from Subway for good luck each of the three times he has been in the finals, to victory last night.

  Evan, an eighth-grader from Walnut Creek, Calif., exuded confidence as he faced the only other contestant still standing, Nate Gartke, 13, of Edmonton, Alberta. First, Evan spelled "Zoilus." Nate, a musician who is a member of a curling team, countered by correctly spelling "vituline." The Canadian gave a thumbs-up as a half-dozen of his nation's flags waved from the audien

  Google News roundup.

  Isabel's words.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 1, 2007 8:14 AM
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