Piedmont student heads to National Spelling Bee

Mallory Irwinsky once told her parents she didn't want to visit Washington, D.C., until she had earned it. <br><br>The seventh-grader from Piedmont Middle School can finally start making travel plans

Sunday, March 21st 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Mallory Irwinsky once told her parents she didn't want to visit Washington, D.C., until she had earned it.

The seventh-grader from Piedmont Middle School can finally start making travel plans for the nation's capital.

Irwinsky beat 39 other competitors in the Central Oklahoma Spelling Bee finals on Saturday, winning an all-expenses paid trip to Washington to compete in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee.

Irwinsky and Carl Schwager, a seventh grader at St. Mary's School in Tulsa, will compete in the national event.

Schwager won the Eastern Oklahoma Spelling Bee held earlier this month.

Irwinsky got her break after 38 rounds, when runner-up Zakiya Shakir, 13, from Heritage Hall Middle School, misspelled ``sesquipedalian.'' The word means a word with many syllables, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Irwinsky, who had a spell-off with Shakir for 21 rounds, won the 5th- through 8th-grade division when she correctly spelled ``putrescible.''

Irwinsky didn't know the meaning of the word, but she knew basic spelling rules.

``I just spelled them based on rules I've studied,'' the 12-year-old said. ``Greek and Latin rules. You just have to put 'em together.''

The dictionary says the winning word means ``liable to become putrid.''

With the win, Irwinsky avenged a loss to the Shakir family _ she lost to Zakiya's older brother, Nabeel, in last year's Central Oklahoma Spelling Bee.

Irwinsky also won a color television, a $100 savings bond, a gift certificate for Amazon.com, a DVD of the spelling bee documentary ``Spellbound'' and a weekend trip to any Oklahoma park and recreation resort.

The Oklahoman sponsored the central regional and the Tulsa World sponsored the eastern regional.