SIS student to represent entire Pacific at spelling nationals

A daughter of Saipan didn’t just impress but slayed at the 2024 Scripps Regional Spelling Bee in Guam last Saturday when she not only won the champion title, but also got the chance to represent the entire Pacific at the national spelling bee this May.

After 15 rounds of the four-hours-long competition, Alleena Villaluz, a seventh grader at Saipan International School, secured victory over 59 elementary and middle school students from Guam, the Federated States of Micronesia, and other schools in the CNMI, despite this being her first regional spelling contest,

A Pacific Daily News report quoted one of judges, Rotary Club of Guam’s Leslie Crouthamel, as saying this year’s competition was one of the longest she has ever encountered during her tenure on the competition panel.

The final rounds boiled down to a nail-biting contest between Villaluz and James Justo, a third grader from iLearn Academy Charter School Guam. As part of the challenge in the final rounds, they each had to correctly spell two words in order to win the championship. Villaluz clinched it by correctly spelling the word “sieve.”

“[In] the first three rounds, a lot of people were getting eliminated, but in the last 10 or so rounds, it was pretty long because me and one other boy were competing for the championship round [and] you have to spell two words correctly to be the champion, and we both got the first word right, but then we got the second word wrong, so we had to keep going in that cycle, basically,” she said in a later interview.

She told Saipan Tribune that, although she had prepared, she was not expecting to win.

“I was nervous at first, but then as the rounds got on, my nervousness dropped more and more, and I got a little more confident with my spelling,” she said.

Villaluz said this was her first regional spelling bee. In the last three years, she has only made it to the school-wide spelling bees at SIS, “so this is my first [regional] competition.”

“I started preparing about two weeks prior to the event and I used a spelling bee word list provided by my teacher, the Scripps Spelling Bee word list, and I also used an app called WordClub. I used it to test my spelling and vocabulary, so those both really helped me,” she said.

Her victory is still sinking in, saying she was actually surprised she won. “I mean, that’s a lot of students to go up against each other and compete. At first, I felt kind of shocked and surprised because I didn’t think I’d win.”

She believes reading a lot comes in handy in a spelling competition, and she was able to recognize many of the words at the competition.

Villaluz is not only an excellent scholar, but her talents include being a part of the National Junior Speech and Debate Association at SIS. She is also preparing to test for her black belt in taekwondo.

She said what she learned from these experiences she applied in the spelling competition, from discipline in taekwondo, to confidence in front of a crowd through her time in Speech and Debate.

When asked how she feels about representing the CNMI and the entire Pacific at the national contest, Villaluz said that, along with feeling honored, she hopes she can make the islands proud.

“I’m still a little bit nervous, but I’m mostly excited for it, because this is my first time competing in an event this big, and I hope I represent the Pacific well. I’m going to try to keep studying, and I’ll do my best for the national competition,” she said.

The national spelling bee will take place this May in Washington, D.C.