Defeats High School Students, Adults and Three Former Bee Winners
RICHTON PARK—(ENEWSPF)–October 30, 2013—It’s quite prophetic that one of the final words 12-year-old Indya Gettings of Matteson, Illinois correctly spelled to win first place in the elementary division of the recent 35th annual Orland Open Spelling Bee was “fealty”–a synonym for “faithful”– an attribute many agree describes this 7th grade Huth Middle School student.
According to Indya’s father, Michael Gettings, Dean of Students at the same school, she is quite faithful to a rigorous reading schedule and has been enthralled with spelling since she was a very young child.
In the Orland Park spelling marathon that lasted nearly three hours, Indya easily passed up some 15 high school competitors and a good half dozen adults as well. At the end of the day, Indya placed 12th out of some 82 contestants, age seven to 80. In the course of the competition she defeated three former winners of the Spelling Bee.
Indya’s final word was “emphysema.”
“Indya Gettings and her Huth Middle School classmate, Noir Baig, are Matteson District 162’s top spellers. It’s very rewarding to see the energy and enthusiasm these two students have for an old fashioned skill such as spelling in today’s digital world when so many writers rely on Spellcheck to monitor their work,” said Dr. Blondean Davis, Superintendent of Matteson District 162.
A veteran of spelling bees since she was in 3rd grade, Indya placed second in the Matteson District 162 Spelling Bee when she was in the 4th grade at Indiana School. In 5th grade, she took first place and represented the District in the South Cook Bee where she finished in the top three and went on to the Regionals. Last year, as a 6th grader at the Indiana School, Indya won the District Spelling Bee and again competed in the South Cook Bee.
A member of the Huth Middle School Dance Club, Indya is also a cheerleader and takes acting at the Fieldcrest School in Park Forest.
“I like to study and learn new words to increase my vocabulary,” Indya explains.
Excellent training, her father says, for a young person who participated in a two- week program for elementary school students this past summer at Loyola University Chicago’s School of Law and who “ talks about a goal of graduating from Harvard School of Law and becoming a lawyer.”
The Orland Annual Open Spelling Bee, sponsored by the Village of Orland Park and the Presbyterian Church in Orland Park, dates it origins to the frontier spelling bees of the late 19th century as recounted by Laura Ingalls Wilder in “Little Town on the Prairie.” The townspeople created the unique special event to push back cabin fever that gripped everyone all winter long.
Source: Matteson Elementary District 162
