Last summer Evan was chosen as an onstage contestant for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, but the judges could not outsmart his spelling skills and resorted to making him spell out of order and giving him non-dictionary words. Evan is dedicated to Tae Kwon Do and has earned a first degree black belt. He loves to play piano: In addition to taking lessons at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he accompanies his church’s children’s choir. This year he began attending the Berkeley Math Circle and achieved success in various math competitions: He earned a perfect score in the American Mathematics Competition for 10th grade, the American Invitational Mathematics Examination, and the Bay Area Math Olympiad. He also placed fifth in the Northern California Mathcounts competition. His parents are Jennifer O’Dorney, his home school teacher, and Michael O’Dorney, a Bay Area Rapid Transit train operator.
From the bee website...
Nice to see a boy win this.
The funny thing is, the winner boy loves math and music so much, and doesn’t care much for spelling or spelling bees. After he won, the tv announcer asked him if he liked spelling just a LITTLE bit more, now that he’d won, and he was dead silent, trying to figure out a way to be polite. He obviously still didn’t get his kicks from it! Sweet boy. As was the cute little Canadian runner up.
We had fun spelling along with the bee at my house. I am pretty good ONLY because I am fluent in French and German, and so many of “our English” (?) words are flat out French and German. But I am too old to enter, alas. :)
I am eternally grateful to our almighty God for giving my grandson these special gifts as he was diagnosed as autistic as a little boy. He does another math competition tomorrow.
Wow. How impressive is that? His mother must also be a fine teacher, but he IS a genius.