Three spellers qualify for state

For more than an hour Thursday afternoon, Joe McGlenn correctly spelled every single word thrown at him - all the way to "erudite" and, finally, "cationic."

With that accomplishment, the Kalispell Junior High eighth-grader became the new Flathead County spelling champion.

He was a couple of words ahead of fellow Creston native Hunter Lapp, who nailed "propinquity" but went out on "acolyte." For that, Lapp, now in seventh grade at Linderman School in Kalispell, was named the county's first runner-up.

Grant Getts wasn't far behind. The Columbia Falls Junior High eighth-grader placed third when he didn't miss a beat on "synchronization," but then missed a couple of letters on "shogunate."

All three boys will advance to the 40th annual Treasure State Spelling Bee April 2 at the Loyola Sacred Heart School auditorium in Missoula.

Each county sends at least its champion; larger-population counties send more competitors. Flathead County is allowed three entrants.

Thirty-one students from public, private and home schools across the county took the stage of the Flathead High School auditorium for the county spelling bee. Each had earned the right by winning his or her own school competitions.

They spelled their way through sluggard, scrim and assault. They triumphed over diamagnetic, quesadilla and termolecular.

But it was xylograph and dactylion that finally left only the three boys standing.

All three were veterans of at least one earlier county spelling bee, so they knew how to keep their cool.

"I was a little nervous at first, but not at the end," said Lapp, who was competing in his second county bee.

Getts made it to the county bee last year and was looking for a little bigger challenge early on.

"They were pretty easy words in the first round," Getts said. So when did they get hard? "Not until that last one."

It might help that he's a big reader, one who's particularly fond of historical fiction. "It tells you so much more than a textbook," he said.

McGlenn had only a shadow of hesitation, but it wasn't because he could not spell the words.

"For a while there no one was really getting out, and I was afraid I was going to get a word I'd never heard," McGlenn said.

"Osteitic" was, admittedly, a strange one, he said. But a definition (it's about inflamed bones) and the word's use in a sentence helped him land on the correct spelling.

When "cationic" came up as his final word to prove his championship status, he knew he had it made - he had just studied about positively charged atoms in science earlier this year.

But his assured demeanor throughout the bee and his spelling acumen carried him that far.

"I try to be confident," said the veteran of county bees in his fifth- and sixth-grade years. "I figure that's worth something."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com