“Scherzo.” That was the word that officially clinched the Orange County Spelling Bee for Sierra Vista Middle School’s own Alan Shi, who will go on to compete in the 86th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee at the end of May.
Two other Irvine students advanced to the top five in the March 2 contest, which featured dozens of the OC's best spellers in grades six, seven and eight. Angela Dong and Annie Chang, both from Lakeside Middle School, placed fourth and fifth, respectively. But the final showdown was between Alan, 14, and Thuy-Any Bui, a 13-year-old from El Rancho Charter School in Anaheim. We could take a stab at recapping some of the play-by-play, but this Orange County Register article does a nice job of highlighting the late action. Oh, and we just learned that a “scherzo” is a musical term, meaning a light or playful composition in a symphony or sonata. We’ll try to work it into a future NewsFlash post.