Traverse City Record-Eagle

Grand Traverse County

May 28, 2009

Speller aces stage test but doesn't advance

BY LINDSAY VANHULLE

TRAVERSE CITY -- Onstage, Lukas Blakkan-Esser appeared composed.

He had studied both of the words he received in the preliminary rounds of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., so he had no trouble with the letters.

Yet even after acing "partiality" and "syncranterian" Wednesday -- the latter word meaning "having teeth in a continuous row" -- Lukas, 14, still had to play the waiting game.

Despite having no trouble on the big stage, the eighth-grader from Traverse City West Middle School didn't score high enough on a written test this week to advance to today's semifinals. He earned 15 of 25 possible points on the test.

He's taking it in stride.

"At least I did well in front of everybody," said Lukas, who was one of 12 spellers from Michigan to compete.

Only one, Sidharth Chand from Bloomfield Hills, placed among the top 41 spellers. Sidharth, 13, finished second last year.

Lukas said he looked up some of the troublesome words from Tuesday's test, so his score wasn't a total surprise.

He added that being one of the last spellers in his group Wednesday made it easier when it was his turn.

"You can't win it all the time," Lukas said. "I've been competing with some of the best."

The second half of Wednesday's competition was streamed live on ESPN360.com.

At one point during the day, Lukas elicited a chuckle from the audience when he asked for the definition to "syncranterian" moments after the pronouncer read it.

"Just making sure," he replied.

He and his family plan to spend the rest of the week in Washington, where they will tour the nation's capital and participate in some closing activities with the other spellers.

Several of them studied together.

Lukas prepared for the bee by studying hundreds of words, highlighting and reviewing ones he misspelled in practice and learning words' origins.

"I really think he did his best," mother Linda Blakkan said. "He nailed his words. They're pretty difficult, some of them."

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