NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – Hard work paid off Wednesday for 13-year-old Caribbean Sea’Era Adams.
She was one of 281 students, ages 8 through 15, from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. territories and seven other countries to compete in the National Spelling Bee.
A seventh-grader from Silver Creek, Miss., Adams is the first student from Lawrence County to make it to the Scripps National Spelling Bee, according to Lawrence County District Superintendent Tammy Fairburn. Adams represented New Hebron Attendance Center, a K-12 school about an hour south of Jackson.
Although Adams didn’t advance to the semifinals, she maneuvered each letter of “poltergeist” with ease during the second preliminary round. The competition was held in Prince Georges County, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C.
In the third round, she paused momentarily on the second letter ‘p’ in “zeppelin” and asked for the word’s definition, language of origin, its use in a sentence, and finally for a repeat of the pronunciation.
“I was nervous whether I’d get a word I knew or something I didn’t know, and hopefully that I’d spell the word right,” Adams said.
Her nerves didn’t get the best of her. Adams was one of 114 kids who spelled correctly in the third round, though scores from a computerized test administered prior to Wednesday’s preliminaries eliminated 175 students from the competition, including Adams.
Her mother, CaSandra, said she’s a great speaker with a “retentive memory.”
“Caribbean has always been a child with a gift, I knew this from when she was a baby,” CaSandra Adams said. “She just did certain things that threw a question mark in your head and you say, ‘Wow.’”
Adams traveled with her mother, her brother CamDen Sr’Paul, 9, and five cousins to the competition. She said she’s eager to see the White House.
She enjoys science and math and is involved in with the beta and drama clubs at school. Her ambitions include studying psychology at Yale University or Stanford University.
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