West Long Branch's Barth Wins Regional Spelling Bee

It took nearly four hours of spelling to whittle 48 contestants down to just two, but it took only seconds for Cooper Barth to spell, with confidence, his winning word, fluctuant. The seventh grader from in beat out Jackie Du, eighth grader from Carl W. Goetz Middle School in Jackson at the Regional Spelling Bee at Monmouth University on Tuesday night.

When Judge Lawrence Benjamin leaned into his mike to say, "That is correct," Barth threw up his arms and let out a "Yes!" and did a little dance before turning to shake hands with Du.

After being eliminated in round two, Du was reinstated after winning a challenge and came back strong correctly spelling the Sanskrit word "holi" and the word "oakenshaw."

Several students were reinstated through the course of the contest as judges reviewed their own decisions or received challenges from parents. In most cases the judges reversed their earlier decisions based on the spellers mispronunciation of the word, which was not caught before the word was spelled.

Behind Du were runners up Katrina Chavez of in and Sindhu Murugan of Linwood Middle School in New Brunswick. 

Despite the off stage challenges, onstage the spirit of competition was friendly with students applauding one another (sometimes before they even heard the judges ruling, presumably because they knew the right spelling). At one point after Maya Ravichandran of William R. Satz Intermediate School in Holmdel correctly spelled the word "ebola" she returned to her seat to receive high fives and audible "good jobs" from Orlie Weiss of the Solomon Schechter Day School in Marlboro and Matthew of Jackson

Barth, who turned nonchalant as soon as he left the stage said he felt "good" about his win. Most spellers asked for definitions, word origin or for the word to be used in a sentence before they chanced their spelling. Barth instead repeated his words and spelled without hesitation. When Patch asked him about this he said, "I knew most of the words." "He studies like 24/7," said his brother.

Now as the winner of the regional spelling bee, Barth will travel with a chaperone to Washington, DC at the end of May, "for a week of sightseeing, entertainment and heavy competition," said one of the bee organizers.

The trip will coincide with his May 27 birthday, no doubt a good omen.