For the second year in a row, Thomas C. Sinclair, a fifth-grader at Jessieville Elementary School, is the county's best speller.
Sinclair won the Garland County Spelling Bee at Gospel Light on Thursday. The winning word was "riviera."
Sinclair said it was a great feeling to win the spelling bee because his dream is to compete in the National Spelling Bee. He spent all of Christmas break studying for the event.
"I study 100 to 200 words a day," he said.
His studying includes looking up words on the Merriam-Webster dictionary website. His mother, Peggy Sinclair, helps him with his spelling, he noted.
"It's better than the four hours on video games. He likes his video games better than spelling," she said.
Sinclair said his next step is to compete in the state competition, and if he wins, he goes on to the national event.
"It feels great," he said.
Last year, Sinclair misspelled a word at the county spelling bee but still won, because his opponent misspelled his champion word, and he was able to make a comeback and spell a different word successfully.
"I was pretty lucky, but mostly I (felt) really confident," Sinclair said.
Amanda Sarver, Jessieville Elementary School principal, said Sinclair won the spelling bee last year as a fourth-grader and was competing against an eighth-grader from Lakeside. The school has high hopes for Sinclair, she said, since he finished in the top 12 last year at the state spelling bee.
"He knows how important it is to know the origin of each word, and he always asks the part of speech, can you use it in a sentence and the definition. He is a fantastic student. He is incredibly sweet and kind, and we are so very proud of him," she said.
His father, Thomas E. Sinclair, said he and his wife didn't know their son could spell so well until last year when he showed interest in competing in the spelling bee. The school told him there was going to be a spelling bee, and he decided to do it.
"He won the class, the school and then he won the county," his father said.
Last year at the Arkansas Spelling Bee, Sinclair placed 11th because he missed the word "mortician."
"Because of life experiences, he didn't know what mortician was. We were pretty surprised, but his mom works really hard with him until the point he is ready to get out of the house," his father said.
Sinclair was born in the Philippines in 2009 but was raised mostly in Japan while his father was working in the military.
"He learned how to read, write and speak Japanese," the elder Sinclair said.
Some of Sinclair's achievements, while he was in the Philippines, included winning a public speaking contest, being the master of ceremonies at his school graduation in kindergarten and first grade and being a pianist. In 2019, he won the Capitol City Spelling Bee in Little Rock, his father said.
Sinclair said he would like to give a special thanks to his parents because his mother works him a lot.
Local on 01/11/2020