Nothing 'impugnable' about boy's spelling bee performance

WESLACO — Mashad Nair Arora barely hesitated on the word that made him the Rio Grande Valley’s top speller.

“Impugnable?” he asked the pronouncer.

He paused briefly as he pictured the word in his mind. A room full of silent spectators watched him anxiously as he again uttered the championship word. “Impugnable. I-M-P-U-G-N-A-B-L-E. Impugnable.”

After 15 rounds that lasted more than three hours, the 12-year-old Los Fresnos boy was declared the champion at Saturday morning’s regional spelling bee. Mashad beamed as he walked toward his parents for a congratulatory hug.

“I’m not a particularly voracious reader,” Mashad said. “Not anything special.”

Rather than reading storybooks, Mashad prefers learning about etymology and linguistics.

“He likes (language) rules,” his tutor Jennifer Escareño said. “He’s so well mannered, dedicated.”

Although he had studied a list of some of the words used during the competition, Mashad said others stumped him and he sometimes just spelled out good guesses.

The Resaca Middle School student admits he got lucky. He had recently memorized the word “impugned,” and it was still fresh in his memory.

“He’s very motivated into words,” said his mother, Saraswathy Nair. “He spent at least a couple of hours per day” preparing for Saturday’s spelling bee.

Along with bragging rights, Mashad earned a trip to Washington, D.C., to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee — the nation’s largest and longest-running spelling competition, according to the event’s organizers.

Saturday’s 22nd annual regional spelling bee was sponsored by Valley Freedom Newspapers, which includes The Monitor in McAllen, the Valley Morning Star in Harlingen, The Brownsville Herald and El Nuevo Heraldo, as well the Mid-Valley Town Crier and the Coastal Current. The event took place at the lecture hall on South Texas College’s Mid-Valley Campus.

“It was really exciting,” said Sandy McGehee, director of educational services for The Brownsville Herald and El Nuevo Heraldo. “Our two top spellers, either one of them would have been a wonderful champion.”

Andres Salazar Jr., a student at Veterans Middle School in Rio Grande City, earned second place at the competition after misspelling the word “pyrethrum,” a type of chrysanthemum that produces an insecticide also called pyrethrum.

The 14-year-old said he earned third place last year at the regional competition.

Overwhelmed with emotion, he embraced his parents and his younger brother after being named runner-up.

“I did a lot of studying,” Andres said. “I started reading the dictionary.”

Andres’ parents smiled warmly as they gushed over their son, whose second language is English.

“I help him study when I can, picking out words from the dictionary,” his father, whose name is also Andres Salazar, said in Spanish.

The teen’s mother, Rosa Salazar, struggled with a language barrier as she tried to congratulate Mashad and his parents after Saturday’s brief award ceremony.

“(The younger Andres) studies all the time. During vacation, on weekends, Saturday, Sunday. He’s always reading his books. One wonders how he does it,” Rosa Salazar said. “He really pushes himself.”

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Ana Ley covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4428.

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SPELLING BEE WINNERS:

First place: Mashad Nair Arora, Resaca Middle School, Los Fresnos

Second place: Andres Salazar, Veterans Middle School, Rio Grande City

Third place (three-way tie):

Matthew Ringheanu, Calvary Christian School, Harlingen

Luis Rolando Solis, Faulk Middle School, Brownsville

Sydney Swatsworth, Freddy Gonzalez Elementary School, Edinburg