Spelling his way to prime-time win

WASHINGTON - The winner of the spelling bee sounded as if he'd rather be at a math Olympiad.

Evan O'Dorney, 13, of Danville, Calif., breezed through the Scripps National Spelling Bee with barely a hitch last night, in a competition that he confessed really wasn't his favorite.

The home-schooled eighth grader aced serrefine before a nationwide prime-time television audience to become the last youngster standing. He won a tense duel with Nate Gartke of Spruce Grove, Alberta, who sought to become the first Canadian to win the bee, in its 80th year.

Evan won a trophy and a $35,000 prize, plus a $5,000 scholarship, a $2,500 savings bond, and a set of reference works. He said he knew how to spell the winning word - a noun describing small forceps - as soon as the pronouncer said it.

Afterward, Evan - who tied for 14th last year - spoke more enthusiastically about attending a math camp in Nebraska this summer than about becoming the English language's top speller, saying spelling "is just a bunch of memorization."

Evan was one of 15 youngsters, out of a record 286 competitors who began the bee Wednesday, to reach last night's finals.

He won after runner-up Nate, also 13, missed out on coryza, a word describing a head cold. He spelled it c-h-o-r-y-z-a.

The first bit of humor in the finals came from Joseph Henares, 14, of Avon, Conn., who exclaimed, "Oh, my God," when he was given the word punaise. When told it was a bedbug, he replied: "I like bedbug better." His eyes grew huge when told he had spelled the word without a flaw.

Connor Spencer, 14, of Platte City, Mo., was even more astounded when he correctly spelled helzel (a poultry skin). Connor's style involved whispering the letters behind his placard before speaking them aloud.

With the finals on ABC in prime time for the second consecutive year, the bee again had to play the foil to the trappings of television. Spectators were asked to perform a contrived standing ovation at the start of the telecast, with the spellers standing onstage with goofy grins while waving to the audience.

If Joseph and Connor appeared surprised at spelling their words correctly, the shock was nothing close to the moment hours earlier when perennial favorite Samir Patel was eliminated in his fifth and final bee. Samir, who last week likened the prospect of not winning to "Dan Marino not winning the Super Bowl," had the audience gasping in disbelief when he misspelled clevis.

The 13-year-old Texan spelled out the word for a type of fastening device as "c-l-e-v-i-c-e." After placing third, 27th, second and 14th in his previous bees, he ended his bee career with a tie for 34th. Like Hall of Fame quarterback Marino, Samir will go down as one of the greatest at his craft never to win the big prize.

Samir wiped away tears as he talked about his gaffe.

"The first thing I thought was c-l-e-v-i-s, and if I had been slow and cautious like I always am, I would have got it right," he said. "But I just outsmarted myself. It was an easy word. I just made a stupid mistake."

Samir's mother, Jyoti, appealed his dismissal, based on subtle differences in the way the word's final syllable could be pronounced. Officials interrupted the following round to replay pronouncer Jacques Bailly's exchange with Samir, and later announced that the appeal had been denied.

"In the end, I think I said it right," Bailly said. "I really wanted him to get it right, and I'm really sorry that he or his family have some questions about it."

See more at the bee Web site via http://go.philly.com/spellingEndText