This interview originally aired on In the Moment on SDPB Radio.
Charli Fickbohm has spelled her way to victory at her school spelling bee, the regional spelling bee and the South Dakota state spelling bee. Now, she's heading to the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
She joins In the Moment with her dad, Darrel, ahead of the competition.
_____________________________________________________________
Lori Walsh:
You're listening to In the Moment on South Dakota Public Broadcasting. I'm Lori Walsh. Well, we have a pop quiz for you today. Can you spell Force majeure? I can't. I'm not sure I can pronounce it. I do not know how to use it in a sentence, nor do I know the definition, but Charli does because Charli is our state champion spelling bee winner. All the things. Charli Fickbohm, welcome to In the Moment. Thanks for being here.
Charli Fickbohm:
Thanks for having me. I'm really happy to be here.
Lori Walsh:
And we have her father with us, Darrel Fickbohm, who you have heard on the program before playing music and talking about the arts. Welcome, Darrel.
Darrel Fickbohm:
Hello. It's good to be here again.
Lori Walsh:
Charli, congratulations. First of all, this is a big honor and it kind of goes under the radar until everybody gets crazy about the National Scripps Spelling Bee. But the winner comes from anywhere, and it could come from South Dakota.
Charli Fickbohm:
Yeah, that's true. I honestly never expected to win the South Dakota Spelling Bee, but I'm really looking forward to Washington DC.
Lori Walsh:
Tell me a little bit about... well, first go ahead and tell us what force majeure even means, or is that already in the rear view mirror for you?
Charli Fickbohm:
No, I remember it. Force majeure is a French word. It means an unstoppable force that comes in the way of achieving a goal, I believe.
Lori Walsh:
Well, that's not a bad word to win on.
Charli Fickbohm:
I guess not.
Lori Walsh:
How are you preparing for Washington DC? How have you gotten this far, and how are you preparing for the next level?
Charli Fickbohm:
Well, there are several different ways to prepare. One way is to study the study guide. The administrators of the spelling bee, usually the state spelling bee, send out a 30 page study guide filled with words that progress in difficulty, and those are the words that they might throw at you in the first rounds of a spelling bee. In the later rounds, though, you won't get words from that list, so you have to memorize spelling words... Blah, sorry. Spelling rules from different languages so you can guess what the word is.
Lori Walsh:
Is it fascinating to you? Is it a grind that you try to get through?
Charli Fickbohm:
I think it's a lot of fun for me because I've always loved words and reading. Since I was really little I was fascinated by where words came from. And I think the English language is really interesting in particular because most of English words aren't originally from English. They're from Latin or Greek or even other places like French or German. And just how those words came together to form a language is really interesting.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Darrel, tell us a little bit about what life is like in your house because kids are busy these days, and this is another thing with some really high... the pressure can be really high.
Darrel Fickbohm:
It can. We are really trying just to keep a balance. She likes words, that's great. She's learned most of them just by reading, not through studying or memorizing the dictionary. And there are some competitors out there that live and eat and breathe and sleep spelling. And they hire college coaches to come in for their kids, and that's what they drill on. That's what they do. We're really not that way. She's a good speller and we're glad. She's hyping up her game for for these contests, but we try to keep things in balance.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah.
Charli Fickbohm:
Yeah.
Lori Walsh:
The playing field is not always going to be even. The outcome is not always going to be fair. We were talking earlier about a basketball tournament that has a lot of people upset. It is important to go through competition with integrity and character. Tell me a little bit, Charli, about just how you take care of yourself and think about the other competitors in a way that you feel you can navigate this and be healthy at the same time.
Charli Fickbohm:
Well, I try not to get into too much of a competitive mindset. When I'm on the stage at an oral bee, whether it's regional, state, or even school or classroom, I try to not make my mindset, quote, I hope this kid goes down on a word so I can get ahead, because that's really not healthy to do. And chances are that the kids there have worked as hard as you have when you're on that stage. And it's not right of you to wish that they would strike out because really, even though we're competing against each other, we're more of a team than that. We're all working towards the same purpose. There's the competition aspect of it but then there's also, we all just love words and we want to share with other people that language is important, and correct language is important, and understanding where it comes from can be really just revealing, I guess.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. It defines who we are in so many wonderful and surprising ways and opens doors to lead us down a rabbit trail that ends up in some really remarkable places. I think that's really well said. Tournament is when? When are you heading out for the big show?
Charli Fickbohm:
The Scripps National Spelling Bee, for simplicity reasons I usually say it's in Washington DC but it's actually in a town just a little south of Washington DC. I'm going to go there on May 28th. It's an all expenses paid trip, which is cool. They're going to take all the competitors on tours of... I think there's a museum in Washington that they're taking us to that's all about words and where words come from, and everybody's excited to go there in my family because it just sounds like a really interesting museum.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Yeah.
Charli Fickbohm:
Yeah.
Lori Walsh:
Well, we will follow your progress. We will cheer for you because that's what we do in South Dakota. And enjoy. Enjoy it. Have fun. Enjoy the ride. Soak it up. Meet some great kids from across the country.
Charli Fickbohm:
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to meeting people there.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. And let us know how it goes. Charli Fickbohm, congratulations.
Charli Fickbohm:
Thank you.
Lori Walsh:
State champion. State spelling bee champion. And her dad Darrel, welcome back. Come back again any time.
Darrel Fickbohm:
Thank you.
Charli Fickbohm:
Thank you.
