Charity is spelling champ - again

La Conner Middle School seventh grader Charity Jordan is on her way to the Scripps Spelling Bee, in the Washington DC area for the second year in a row.

Charity, 13, won the regional spelling bee last Saturday after competing against 32 others and spelling B-O-L-S-H-E-V-I-K.

Bolshevik is the old name for the Russian Social Democratic Party, which was renamed the Communist Party after it seized power in the October Revolution of 1917.

Before competing in the regional bee, Charity out-spelled 12 school mates in the La Conner School District contest.

Her trip to the nationals will be in May, and she will compete for this year’s top prize of a $40,000 cash and an engraved Scripps trophy.

She said this time around in the regional spelling bee, which included students from four counties including Skagit, “It wasn’t as hard as last year since there was only 16 rounds, and I knew I was prepared. The hardest thing for me to do was to calm down.”

Charity said she plans to compete one more year – her last time since the spelling bee is open only to middle school students up to eighth grade.

Besides being a champ speller, Charity also participates in sports including indoor and outdoor soccer, the middle school basketball team, and an out of school basketball team. She also involved in Soo Bahk Do which is Korean martial arts form and she plays violin.

To top it all off, she participates in 4H and raises dairy goats and regularly shows her goats at the fair every year.