Santa Fe Prep student clinches state spelling bee with 'vizierial'

Mar. 23—Between the cheers, tears and pronunciations, the room seemed still enough to hear a belly rumble. It started around 9 a.m. Saturday with 25 competitors onstage at the Albuquerque Little Theatre.

By 1 p.m., only three fierce competitors remained.

One by one, with the ding of the bell signifying "incorrect," they fell — bested by buñuelo and bánh mì — before 13-year-old Juliette Anderson claimed the top spot by spelling coulrophobia, an abnormal fear of clowns, and vizierial, relating to a vizier — a Muslim head of state.

It took Anderson, a seventh grader at Santa Fe Preparatory School, 40 rounds to clinch the 2024 New Mexico State Spelling Bee. Hannah Li, 11, of Mountain Elementary in Los Alamos, took second place and Keith Lee, 12 — last year's champion — claimed third.

Anderson said she felt "pretty good" about the win.

She said she had been entering spelling bees since the third grade and prepares by going over the word list, which numbers in the hundreds. For every word she gets wrong, Anderson said she writes it out 10 times and then makes flash cards for the ones she is still unsure of.

In her last spelling bee, she competed in her district and was ousted after misspelling "holocaust," taking fifth place.

Anderson, who rarely asked for a word's origin or other details in the final rounds, said she couldn't think of a particular word she was fazed by. She said she's excited to head to Maryland for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Despite an affinity for spelling big words, the aspiring poet and math teacher said she uses them "sometimes" in her writing. Her mother, Jacqueline Davis, interjected, however, that Anderson has used "codswallop" and "cantankerous" in poems.

Controversy appeared to rear its head during the bee when parents whispered about judges pronouncing some words wrong and at one point exclaimed, loudly, "that's not fair," when a word was skipped for the next.

Seventh grader Lee, the third-place finisher, called Saturday's competition "really nerve-wracking" but also a learning experience.

"I didn't really get the result I wanted," he said. "So I want to make sure I work even harder next year and, hopefully, I can achieve my desired result."

For Lee, who attends Albuquerque Academy, English is a second language that he began learning in elementary school. He said he was driven to become better at spelling after fudging the word "frozen" in a third-grade class bee.

"I've worked really hard. And it's gotten me to where I am today," Lee said.

Although it was a stressful affair for the kids, families also felt the pressure.

Anderson's mother called it "parent torture."

"It literally feels like I'm going to throw up or pass out every time she goes up there, every time," Davis said. "Horrible to watch, absolutely, do not recommend it."

After victory was sealed, Davis said she couldn't help but break down into tears as she and dozens of others gave a standing ovation.

"I can and I can't believe it," she said. "She works so hard. I've never seen anybody who's as dedicated and driven. She's also got a great brain, as I tell her."

Davis said her main goal is for her daughter to feel good about herself, no matter how the competition shakes out.

"I don't care if you come in last... I'm proud of you and I love you no matter what," she said. "And you should be proud of yourself because you've worked really hard to get here."

Then Davis looked at her daughter — holding the first-place trophy and surrounded by well-wishers — and said, quietly: "She's very competitive, and she would not have been happy without winning."