The City of Boston, under the supervision of its Centers for Youth and Families department, staged the 7th annual Scripps Spelling Bee regional finals at the Copley Library on Saturday March 22 and once again, the North End and the Nazzaro Center were well represented. Three Nazzaro participants, Domenic Orlando (St. John’s), Jacob Stein (Eliot) and Sarah Knotts (Edison) took the stage in the Rabb Auditorium with 21 other participants from across the city and when that number had been whittled down to three, two of them were still in the running for an all-expenses paid trip to Washington DC and a berth in the national finals! In fact, one of them turned out to be a finalist!! But, alas, unlike the results of two previous years (2008, 2010) when the Nazzaro did send Ross Garrity to the finals, we had to settle for a 2nd and 3rd place finish.
The end result saw Jacob finish in third place and Sarah spell five words correctly before finally succumbing on her 6th try (Domenic had bowed out in an earlier round). With so many wins and close finishes in the 7 years that Boston has participated in this national event, the Nazzaro Center, the schools represented and the entire North End community feels nothing but pride and honor, not only in these three most recent students, but in all the students who have taken the stage over the years and put forth such exemplary efforts with style and grace under enormous pressure. Congratulations Dom, Jake and Sarah!
