By Rick Wright

Staff Writer

“Salmonella.”  

As soon as she heard the announcer say the word, Lily Jordan knew she was going to win the Maine State Spelling Bee.

“When I heard it, I knew that I knew it. So I was really excited,” Jordan said. “Then I just concentrated on making sure I didn’t accidentally say the letters wrong.”

Jordan won the bee Saturday at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, beating 12 other competitors representing counties throughout Maine.

“We’re very proud of her. We’re thrilled. We’re all very excited,” said Nancy Jordan, Lily Jordan’s mother.

Jordan now advances to the national spelling bee championship June 2 through June 4 in Washington, D.C., where she will compete with nearly 300 students, Jordan said.

“It’s really exciting to be able to go to the nationals and represent the whole state,” said Jordan, a soft-spoken 12-year-old.

To prepare for the state championship, Jordan studied 30 minutes a day. She tried to memorize all the words in a booklet called “Spell It” by Merriam Webster and also studied words not included in the booklet.

Like all good competitors, Jordan went into the contest with a clear strategy in mind. Her secret?  Go slow and ask questions.

“I just tried to spell really slowly so that I wouldn’t say a letter that sounded like another letter. Sometimes when I’m saying vowels, they have a tendency to sound like other vowels,” Jordan said.  “If I didn’t know a word, I’d ask for the language of origin or the definition.”

Jordan, a seventh-grader at Cape Elizabeth Middle School, tied for fifth place in last year’s state final.

On her way to the state championship this year, Jordan captured school, district and county titles.

What makes her such a good speller? Reading, writing, and studying foreign languages, especially Spanish. 

“In the bee, I got four different words for Mexican food,” Jordan said. “So that helped.”

Nancy Jordan said her daughter began demonstrating a talent for spelling at an early age. 

“She just had a good memory for the way that words looked and she didn’t really have to sound them out too much,” she said.

A skill with words appears to run in Jordan’s family. Her father, Glenn, is a sportswriter at the Portland Press Herald and her mother is a freelance editor of educational materials.

Jordan got her first taste of spelling bee competition when she was in the fourth grade at Pond Cove Elementary School. In a contest sponsored by the Cape Elizabeth Education Foundation, her team was eliminated in the first round. Undeterred, she kept on competing.

“That got me interested in spelling bees,” Jordan said.

Rick Wright can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 237. news@inthesentry.com.