Student honors: a ten-year-old of St. Pius X parish carries the ground's second national stage

2009 – 2010 · the South Bend Tribune Regional Spelling Bee and the Scripps National Spelling Bee

Margaret Peterson, whole at the record's strength: in the spring of 2010 Margaret Peterson, ten years old, a homeschooled fourth-grader of St. Pius X Parish in Granger, won the South Bend Tribune Regional Spelling Bee — the youngest regional winner the diocesan paper's account records — and advanced to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. The account, carried in Today's Catholic, the newspaper of the Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend, on April 21, 2010, is a full telling and this entry follows it: she had spelled since she was two, copied Greek and Latin roots onto note cards since first grade as part of her schoolwork, and studied half an hour to an hour a day between the regional and the national. At the regional, the words the paper preserves are "parapet," settled by asking for another pronunciation; "monstrance" and "plenary," the Catholic words her father's tears and her own care carried; and the ending — the runner-up missed "ornithoscopy," the bird-watching word whose root, "ornithos," Margaret knew on sight from her cards, and Margaret then spelled "cribbage" in the final minutes to take the title. She went to Washington for the national bee that June, into a field the paper puts at about 250 spellers, under the format of the day — a written test and staged rounds, fifty advancing. How far she went in Washington is not in the records reached; her finish stands as a named gap below, with Scripps' official 2010 results as the settling source. What stands whole is the regional championship itself: a national-stage student honor, won by a child of this ground, at the youngest age the regional record had seen — and won outside the school system entirely, from a homeschool household of the parish whose school stands in the Schools section.

The champion before her, at his record's strength: the diocesan account opens with the previous year's regional champion, Jonathan Isaac, a fellow homeschool student, standing in the crowd willing her on — "You can win this, Margaret!" — and photographing her win. Scripps' own results summary for the 2009 national bee carries him as the Tribune's speller, number 102, spelling "stagnant" in the second round. His home ground is not stated in any record reached, and this section does not claim it: he stands here as the regional bee's 2009 champion and the prior holder of the stage Peterson took, at exactly that strength, with the settler for his seat named in the gaps register if a future pass needs it. The regional bee's other documented homeschool champion in the library's index — Erik Bolt, a sixth-grader who took the 2000 title in forty-one rounds — stands the same way: a champion of the region's bee whose seat this record does not fix, and who is therefore not entered as this ground's.

The school-channel line: the CDP's own schools are elementary and middle schools; their buildings' academic honors — the Blue Ribbons and state designations — stand in the Schools section whole and are pointed to in the next article. The high-school student honors of this ground's children — National Merit and its kin — accumulate at Penn High School in Mishawaka, belong to that school's record in Mishawaka's build, and are pointed to, not gathered here: a Granger child's diploma honors are printed where the granting school stands. The spelling championship above is this section's because its winner's seat — her parish and her home — is documented on this ground itself.

Sources:

1. Today's Catholic (Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend), Karen Clifford, "It's onward to National Spelling Bee for Margaret Peterson," April 21, 2010 (the homeschooled fourth-grader of St. Pius X Parish, Granger; the regional title and the youngest-winner note; the words parapet, monstrance, plenary, ornithoscopy and cribbage; the root-card preparation; the national field and format as her mother described them; Jonathan Isaac's presence and his prior-year title), todayscatholic.org.
2. Scripps National Spelling Bee, Summary of Round 2, 2009 (speller 102, Jonathan Isaac, sponsored by the South Bend Tribune, South Bend, Indiana; the word "stagnant"), spellingbee.com results record.
3. The Michiana Memory / St. Joseph County Public Library local-history index (the Tribune's report of the 2000 regional bee: Erik Bolt, home-schooled sixth-grader, champion in 41 rounds) — seat not stated in the index entry, printed at that limit.