Paradise’s Mason Gill is province’s top speller

By Olivia Bradbury / Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

One of the youngest competitors in this year’s Elks Avalon Spelling Bee turned out to also be the top speller.
Third grader Mason Gill of Octagon Pond Elementary won the crown in a spell-off with the other semi-finalist, eighth grader Ben Parsons of Juniper Ridge Intermediate in Portugal Cove.
This year’s Bee, co-sponsored by The Shoreline News, online business news site allnewfoundlandlabrador.com, and a bevy of corporate contributors, attracted some 20 entrants from 26 schools throughout the Avalon Peninsula.
It’s the second year for this incarnation of the Bee, which was brought back to life by retired journalists Deanne Fleet and Roger Bill and the Elks Club of St. John’s after the long running competition petered out after having been sponsored by The Telegram for many years.
Fleet used a modest bequest from her late mom, avid reader Helen Fleet, to kickstart the new version of the Bee.
This year’s event was held April 12 at the College of the North Atlantic’s Paul L. Pope Centre for TV & Film in St. John’s. The competitors had to win spelling bees at their respective schools to advance to the Elks competition. The overall winner, Mason Gill, will represent Newfoundland at the Canada Super Spelling Bee in Ottawa this summer.
This year’s Elks Bee not only featured more schools than last year, and from a much wider area than last year’s competition, but also students from more grades – all the way from Grades 4 to 8. Other sponsors included Breakwater Books, Newfoundland and Labrador Credit Union, Equinor, and College of the North Atlantic. All 20 participants received complimentary passes to the Johnson Geo Centre, Memorial University’s Botanical Gardens, and the Fluvarium. They will also receive tickets to a future Newfoundland Regiment hockey game.
The audience at the spelling bee consisted not only of proud families, but also beaming teachers. Colleen Powers, a teacher at Upper Gullies Elementary, was on hand to watch her student, sixth grader Cate Nugent, compete. Powers noted nearly all of her school’s 130 Grades 4 – 6 students participated in the qualifying spelling bee held at the school.
While some students were initially nervous to play, Powers admitted, she encouraged them by telling them they would be happier if they tried. It was her goal to encourage students even when they got words wrong.
“Every time someone was out, the whole class would clap and celebrate them and say, ‘Way to go! Awesome job!’ so they left on a high note,” said Powers.
The kids came to enjoy spelling, said Powers, with some of them even practicing on their own initiative during recess and lunch periods.
Jessica McNutt, a teacher at Macdonald Drive Elementary, attended the Avalon Bee to watch her school’s entrant, Grade 6 student Ibrahim Islam compete.
Last year, McNutt held a four-week spelling bee club in preparation for the Elks Avalon Bee. In September, at the beginning of the current school year, students were already asking her when they could start the club again. The club resumed in January and even after Islam was chosen as the winner, students asked to continue the club until the end of the year.
“They give up their lunches and we have a little spelling bee club where we go over strategies and do mock spelling bees,” McNutt said. The club has 30 members, all students from grades four to six.
The Avalon Bee, meanwhile, culminated in a nail-biter between eighth grader Parsons and third grader Gill. Ultimately, Gill came out on top, winning with the word “plethora.”
As runner-up, Parsons received a finalist’s medal and an Indigo gift card. The student in each grade who lasted the longest in the competition also received Young Readers Awards in the form of Indigo gift cards in memory of Fleet’s mother.
When asked how he got to be so good at spelling, nine-year-old Gill explained it was from reading a lot of books. He particularly enjoys the works of Rick Riordan, who is best-known for his series Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
Supporting Gill at the spelling bee were his parents Gilbert and Lesleyanne and his older brother, Logan, who was beside himself after the win — literally in tears, the very picture of a proud sibling. Mom Lesleyanne was equally proud of Mason.
“He’s not one for big crowds or to be in the spotlight, so to have him up on stage competing in a pretty stressful event against kids so much older than him, it was just indescribable,” she said.
Along with competing in the Canada Super Spelling Bee in Ottawa on July 19, Gill will attend a three-day summer school on the campus of Algonquin College from July 16 to 18.
The individual grade winners included Gill for Grades 3 and 4; Aadeen Ashrafee of Lakecrest, and Megan Hamilton of Octagon Pond Elementary for Grade 5; Ibrahim Islam, of Macdonald Drive Elementary for Grade 6; Laaibah Muntaha, of St. Paul’s for Grade 7, and Ben Parsons, of Juniper Ridge for Grade 8.