'Neolalia' wins student Cascade County Spelling Bee

Calob Stahmer survived 15 rounds of challenging words to win the Cascade County Spelling Bee on Tuesday with the word "neolalia."

The seventh-grader at North Middle School said he has no idea what the word means, but he stepped up to the plate in a tense final round with fifth-grader Hunter Davis from Ulm and nailed his winning word out of the park.

"I had no history on that word," said Calob, who was once a student at West Elementary School, where Tuesday's county spelling bee was held.

Hunter took second place, and Taylor Radonich, a seventh-grader at East Middle School and second-place finisher in 2014, rounded out the top three.

Calob will go onto the state spelling bee competition later this month along with Hunter and Taylor.

"He's my little spell check," said Jean Stahmer, Calob's grandma. "He told me he was going to win and I said 'Don't be too sure of yourself.'"

This was Calob's third trip to the Cascade County Spelling Bee. He'd done well in the past but had never cracked the top 10.

"I did practice a lot," he said. "Any time when I had spare time, I practiced."

Tim Gale, Calob's dad, doubts his son got any of his spelling talent from him.

"I text him and ask him how to spell words," Gale said.

The spelling bee got off to a rough start when contestants one and two both misspelled their words, hearing the dreaded "ding" of the judges' bell. But after the first round, 34 of the 54 contestants still remained.

Calob spelled bambino, palette, Samaritan, slovenly, veracity, largesses and contumely correctly before making it into the final round with Hunter where they battled over words like malediction, oscillatory, firkin and more.

"Now I'm going to practice even more," Calob said.

Hunter said he felt pretty great about his performance, considering this was his first time ever entering the county spelling bee. With each word he was handed — and he was handed some doozies like frabjous, abhorrently and ingratiate — Hunter slowly spelled out the words and paused when he finished some, almost astounded that the bell never rang to call him out until the last round.

"I sort of picture the word in my mind," Hunter said. "I feel great. It was pretty fun."

Taylor was happy to be a finalist once again in the county spelling bee. He said he nearly stumbled on indulgent — he couldn't decide if it started with an "in" or "en" — but did the same thing Hunter did and pictured it in his mind, and plowed through the world with seeming ease. Nor was he disappointed with his third-place finish rather than second-place finish last year.

"I could have not made it at all," he said. "I just put the hard work into it."

Reach Tribune Staff Writer Kristen Cates at 791-1463 or kcates@greatfallstribune.com. Follow her on Twitter @GFTrib_KCates.