Madison crowns its top speller, who won bee with 'drupiferous' and 'Ecuador'

Barnhill was one of 41 students vying for the title of Madison’s star speller Saturday at Madison College’s Mitby Theater.

“I’m feeling good because I got second place last year,” he said. “I got out last year on definition.”

The three top spellers advanced to the Badger State Spelling Bee on March 21, so Barnhill will be joined by Joanne Aldoori of Madinah Academy, who placed second, and third-place finisher Ignatius Fassino of St. Ambrose Academy. 

Spellers competed for two and a half hours, each round getting progressively harder. Speller Inez Schultz-Brinkman from Nuestro Mundo Community School correctly spelled "hors d'oeuvres" in the third round to gasps of appreciation from the audience.

Other words tripped up spellers as the bee progressed, including "emissary," "opaleye" and "paparazzi."

Before the bee started, Jane McMahon, who coordinates the Wisconsin spelling bee program, reminded the students that to take stock of how far they had already come and encouraged them to enjoy the experience.

Every few rounds, spellers stepped to the microphone for a vocabulary round, in which they were given the word, and the spelling if requested, and they had to choose the right definition.

Two hours into the bee, only eight spellers remained and the competition grew a bit more tense. Barnhill was unbothered. It was his third spelling bee, so he was well-versed in how it works.

Many spellers held tight to their memories of the printed letters in their study guides, tracing them in the air as they spelled them out. Some took their time, requesting definitions, origins and parts of speech. Others, often Barnhill, rattled off the letters as though they had just appeared before their eyes.

In the last rounds of the bee, Fassino correctly defined "elusive" and spelled "hegemony" before misspelling "borough."

Aldoori correctly defined "humdrum" and spelled "ibuprofen," "arboretum," "jambalaya" and "corduroy" before misspelling "bifurcate."

Barnhill, meanwhile, correctly defined "bask" before correctly spelling "erroneous," "chancellor"  and "echidna." In the final round, he correctly and confidently spelled "drupiferous" before earning the citywide title with "Ecuador."

Since taking home that second place trophy last year, Barnhill has kept his nose to the grindstone. He credits the Scripps Word Club app and a lifelong affinity for words in helping him become something of a human dictionary.

“I used the app to study and I just started basically with level two words,” Barnhill said. “Spelling comes natural to me.”

His proud family greeted him by the stairs, just after he’d hoisted the massive first-place trophy for pictures with the other word wizards. Mid-bee, announcer Barry Adams had the spellers take a moment and applaud their families, who’d helped them prepare and gotten them to the bee. But Barnhill’s parents take little credit for their son’s win.

“We are so proud of Casey,” his mother Lisa Barnhill said.

“He pretty much did it all on his own, too,” his father Colin Barnhill said, later adding that the family is “glad the next bee starts at one instead of nine.”

His younger sister, Luna, stood low on the stairs, smiling quietly. She herself isn’t much for spelling, she said, but her brother’s command of the language may come in handy on assignments.

Victory in hand, it’s time to prepare for the next competition. Barnhill plans to continue consulting the app, taking down words and definitions. He’s optimistic about the state bee, he said, but he’s not making any assumptions about how he’ll place.

“I don’t know, no expectations. We’ll see what comes,” he said.

The Madison All-City Spelling Bee and the Badger State Spelling Bee, which will be held March 21 at the Mitby Theater, are sponsored by the Wisconsin State Journal. The newspaper has organized and sponsored the bees since 1949.

In addition to McMahon, a team of volunteers helped the bee run smoothly, including Adams as the pronouncer, judges Meredith McGlone, Susan Toth and Kate Madson; recorder Lisa Wilson; and registration workers Maureen Brady, Leanne Cordisco and Karin Exo.