Spelling Bee competitors show their emotions — and their smarts

In the calm before the competition, the competitors brace themselves for the contest facing them.

Miller Photography

Miles Shebar (right) of Hunter College HS realizes he’s the winner after Jimmy Padilla Jr. of IS 61 in Queens misspells “wherewithal.”

Victorious Miles Shebar hugs his trophy while his parents, Billy Shebar and Katie Geissinger, hug him.

Darlene Johnson sat in the packed auditorium at Hunter College HS with bated breath. Her 10-year-old daughter, Jazmin, was among the 56 middle school students on stage, competing in the second day of the 47th annual New York Spelling Bee.

“I-M-P-A-S-S,” Jazmin spelled “impasse” in the tournament’s first round, leaving off the final, silent “e.” A bell indicating an incorrect answer sounded and the judges read the word’s correct spelling to the assembled students, parents and teachers.

A disappointing turn of events for the 5th-grader at the UFT Charter School, but she took it in stride. After all, she had already won her school’s bee and the Brooklyn borough bee, and was hardly the only student eliminated in the citywide competition’s first round.

On the contrary, her competitors were dropping like flies, stumped by words like “colloquial,” “libretto” and “vigilante.”

“Impasse isn’t spelled how it sounds,” she noted after the competition, saying she still enjoyed the experience despite her early elimination. “It was fun to learn some words and go to the bee and try my best.”

And her mother, who herself made it to a borough spelling bee when she was 9, is immeasurably proud of Jazmin. “She’s looking forward to competing next year,” she gushed. “It was a very exciting experience. I’m so proud of her.”

The competition, which took place March 10 and 11, pit the best of the best of New York’s young spellers against each other: in order to compete in the citywide event, each student had to have won top honors at their school and borough bees. In total, 111 whiz kids competed over the course of the two days, spelling often-obscure words like “pangolin,” an alternate name for the scaly anteater.

The two first-place winners — one from each day — 13-year-old Miles Shebar from Hunter College HS and 11-year-old Arvind Mahankali from the Forest Hills Montessori School will advance to the National Spelling Bee finals on June 1 and 2 in Washington, D.C. Each also received a laptop and gigantic trophy, among other items.

Seventh-grader Miles, who narrowly beat out Queens IS 61 8th-grader Jimmy Padilla Jr. for the top spot when the latter spelled “wherewithal” with an additional “l” at the end, said he was “elated and felt extremely lucky” upon winning the competition.

“Spelling bees are more about luck than they are about spelling,” the modest champ, a first-time bee contender, said. “It was amazing to win.”

Miles said he planned to take a week off before he begins studying for the D.C. competition. He attributed his success locally to the two weeks he spent studying orthography and etymology with his mother before the bee and to his avid reading, including especially the well-known Belgian series of comic strips, “The Adventures of Tintin.”

Jazmin followed a similar strategy to prepare, studying with the school’s assessment coordinator, Althea Headlam, since December. Headlam praised her pupil, saying, “She’s really great at remembering words and rules and figuring out words she doesn’t know.”

But Jazmin wasn’t the only one learning in the lead-up to the big day. “I enjoyed working with her and the other kids,” Headlam said. “I learned rules from different languages I didn’t know before.”

The bee, all parties agree, was a major S-U-C-C-E-S-S.