DODDS champion survives
first round of national spelling bee
By Sandra Jontz,
Washington bureau
For good luck, Mark
Norsworthy brought with him custom-made dog tags bearing his name. "They've worked
before," he said of the good-luck charm. |
WASHINGTON — And he’s off.
As he rounded the first turn of the competition, Mark Norsworthy stumbled. No,
hesitated. No, concentrated. But then he belted out his carefully chosen the letters.
"C-O-N-S-A-N-G-U-I-N-I-T-Y."
He waited.
No ding-ding of the little silver bell on the judge’s table that indicates a
contestant has misspelled a given word.
So back to his seat went speller No. 151.
Tuesday night, here in the nation’s capital, Mark had successfully sailed through
the first round of this race to be known as the best middle-school speller in all the
land.
Correctly spelling consanguinity, (which, by the way, means blood relationship) moved
Mark on to round two and possibly round three being held Wednesday afternoon.
Mark won the European contest and now is one of 248 contestants competing in the 74th
annual Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee.
He’s not nervous about the competition, he said Tuesday about an hour before
taking center stage. He has studied, he has prepared himself, and now it’s all about
having fun, said the Ramstein middle-schooler.
"It’s really just about having a good time now," he said. "Winning
would be great, but not the most important thing. You have to relax. It’s one word,
one little word."
He has confidence, and custom-made dog tags he carries for good luck.
But his parents, Karen and Senior Master Sgt. Mike Norsworthy, are having a much
tougher time.
"We’re more nervous than Mark," said his father, a 20-year veteran.
"He’s all calm and we’re the ones on pins and needles."
The red-haired, freckled spelling-and- math whiz has lived his entire life in Germany
and gleaned his flair for words and numbers from the military school system and reading
— especially lots of reading.
Living in Germany and studying Spanish in school has helped prepare him for this
competition of a lifetime, he said. However, despite the 14 years he has lived overseas,
he’s not fluent in German.
"I speak it more than most but not as much as you’d expect," he
sheepishly said.
Burying his head in books or practicing spelling words for hours with his parents
isn’t the only thing to occupy the diverse eighth-grader’s time.
The straight-A student also enjoys competitive soccer, has a brown belt in karate,
plays classical music on the piano and has a passion for space.
He’ll wants to be an astronaut one day, he said.
"Being good at math, physics just kind of falls in place with that," he said.
"And I love space."
He doesn’t know if he’ll follow in the footsteps of both grandfathers, his
father, and his uncle and join the Air Force. The military is an option and a logical step
toward work in the field of space, but he’s just not sure.
Being in Washington these past few days means more to the eighth-grader than
participating in a prestigious contest. It’s been two years since he last saw his
paternal grandparents from North Carolina, and he’s having a blast spending time with
them, he said.
Mark has his own mini cheering section in the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt hotel. His
parents, grandparents and his Uncle Dave, who flew in from Scott Air Force Base in
Illinois to see his nephew, sit ready to cheer him on.
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