Meet Austin’s spelling whiz

While many kids would cringe at the thought of spending an entire hour every day working on spelling, 14-year-old Shane DeSilva doesn’t think it’s a big deal.

“I usually do it in my free time,” Shane said.

Shane started competing in spelling bees in fifth-grade and was hooked.

“When I won, it motivated me to do better in the next one,” Shane said.

He has competed every year since then. Now an eighth-grader at Pacelli Catholic Schools, Shane won the Minnesota Spelling Bee in Rochester on Feb. 25 to reach the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Shane will compete against 281 spellers from all over the world, according to the Scripps website. The competition, which starts on Tuesday, May 27, with computer-based preliminary tests, goes through the week until Thursday, May 29, when the Championship Finals will start at 8 p.m. The final competition will be aired on ESPN.

“The first rounds are not on TV,” Shane said. “It would be a good warm up if I can get past that to get to the TV part.”

Although he is nervous, Shane is also excited to be competing at such a high level.

A busy bee

When he was younger, Shane would prepare by going over a list of words that was given to him to study. As he grew older, he started to learn the roots of words to better help him during the competition. It seems to help. The spelling whiz says his favorite word is “asphyxiate.”

“It just looks really cool,” Shane said. “It’s one of the words that looks really hard but if you look into how to do it with the language it actually makes sense.”

But Shane’s interest in spelling bees is not the only thing he enjoys. He has been in multiple competitions, such as Math Masters, the Geography Bee and Austin’s Got Talent. He started playing the piano when he was four and has competed in different shows with those piano skills. Although Shane is not into sports, Sam DeSilva said his son finds plenty of competition.

“He found a better avenue for competition in a lot of these things,” Sam said.

Shane was the runner-up the first few years he competed at the Minnesota Spelling Bee, so he was excited to finally make it to the national level.

The state competition went 36 rounds, and DeSilva won by spelling “polymythy,” which Merriam-Webster defines as “the inclusion of many or several stories or plots in one narrative or dramatic work.”

“This year was really a nail-biter,” Sam said. “He misspelled the word and I thought, ‘Oh, he’s done’, but he was fine with it. He had a good attitude. And then the other girl came in and she misspelled it too, so he got another chance.”

‘The staff is tickled pink’

Shane’s family will be driving down to Washington, D.C., to support him during the national contest. But they aren’t the only ones rooting for him. Shane’s classmates at Pacelli are also keeping their fingers crossed.

“Shane is an outstanding student and outstanding man and an amazing speller,” Pacelli President Jim Hamburge said. “It really makes the entire school proud. His classmates are excited for him, I think the staff is tickled pink.”

The school has recognized Shane at assemblies and cheered for him, and even jokingly asked him to spell words at any given time. Since this is the first time anyone has gotten out of this region with first place, Hamburge says everyone was thrilled.

“It’s bigger than Pacelli,” Hamburge said. “I think everyone in this entire community can be proud.”

But win or lose, Shane is happy knowing that he has put in his best effort.

“I think that for him, this was his goal just to make it in,” Shane’s father said. “Anything else is just the icing on the cake.”