St. Anne Catholic School announced this week that seventh-grader, Alyssa Mangio, won the Nevada State Spelling Bee and will be representing Nevada at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., May 24-26.
The Nevada State Spelling Bee was held on Saturday, March 5, at Bishop Gorman High School and was comprised of 29 sixth, seventh and eighth-grade students from around the state. Alyssa represented the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas at the state level after her win at the Marietta Tiberti Memorial Catholic School Spelling Bee in January.
After 12 rounds against other Nevada spellers, Alyssa advanced with the correct spelling of “orison,” defined as “prayer” by Merriam-Webster. In second place: an eighth-grader from Pau Wa Lu Middle School in Douglas County incorrectly spelling “palustrine.” Earlier words spelled correctly by Alyssa included: loiter, parmesan, ambivalent, libretto, commensurate and Visigothic.
This was Alyssa’s first appearance at the Nevada State Spelling Bee, advancing past two third-year spellers and four second-year spellers.
The last Nevadan speller from Clark County was Amna Raza in 2013 and 2014 and the last Nevadan speller to advance as a top five national finisher at the Scripps National Spelling Bee was Dakota Jones from Clark County in 2011.
