Brian Liu, of Great Neck, and Olivia Lipiec, of Smithtown, headed to Scripps National Spelling Bee after winning regional competition
Brian Liu and Olivia Lipiec will compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee Credit: Newsday/ J. Conrad Williams Jr.
Two Long Island spelling alums will return to the stage of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in May to give the championship another shot.
Brian Liu, 13, from Great Neck, and Olivia Lipiec, 14, of Smithtown, will represent Long Island against some of the nation’s best spellers. Both teens had made it to the national stage before, Brian in 2023 and Olivia in 2024.
Brian attends Great Neck North Middle School and Olivia attends Accompsett Middle School in Smithtown. The two share an interest in languages and math: Both children of immigrants, they speak English and the native tongue of their parents — Mandarin for Brian and Polish for Olivia. Brian is also learning Latin and Olivia is learning French.
Their goals are similar too — to do better than they did last time. Brian was stopped short of the finals and Olivia was eliminated in the preliminaries.
“The whole experience, just being in D.C. and competing in the national spelling bee is just really fascinating to me,” Olivia said in an interview this week. “It's a great experience I'm glad to be able to have again.”
The national competition, celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, will take place May 27-29 in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside the nation’s capital.
The two Island winners emerged out of 20 spellers from New York, Virginia and Massachusetts to take the regional championship after a virtual contest March 8, according to Tammy Riddle, director of sales and marketing for the Scripps National Spelling Bee, based in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Across the Island, 102 schools participated, and seven students advanced to the regional final after an online test further narrowed the field, Riddle said.
The bee was held online after ScholarSkills for STARS, an education nonprofit based in upstate New Windsor, stopped sponsoring the regional event this year. Scripps said it is seeking a regional partner to sponsor the program on Long Island.
The last word Brian spelled to earn a winning spot after 17 rounds in a three-hour-long competition was "quetzal,” a type of bird with striking colors. Olivia’s was "bacchius,” a term used in poetry.
In September, Great Neck North Middle School teacher Dan Del Ferraro said he told his students, including Brian, to reflect on a book they read over the summer. When he was grading the assignments, he noticed Brian used an unusual word: “antanagoge.”
At first, Del Ferraro thought Brian meant to write “antagonism,” the teacher said. But when he looked up antanagoge, he realized Brian had used it intentionally.
Antanagoge means a certain rhetorical technique and does not even appear in the Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary. The noun is used in “fewer than 0.01 occurrences per million words in modern written English,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
For Del Ferraro, that was not the last time he learned a new word through his student.
“It's humbling because I'm an English teacher, but it's like a gift for him,” Del Ferraro said.
Brian said what intrigues him in words, as well as math, is the patterns in them.
“I like math because there's patterns everywhere,” he said in an interview Monday. “There's also patterns in words. You can eventually trace a lot of words to the same roots.”
Overall, Brian said he likes learning in a “systematical, organized and structured manner.”
A fan of Harry Potter books and fantasy novels, Brian said he is drawn to math’s absolute complexity.
“It's different from reading. Everything only has one answer,” he said. “Some concepts appear simple but they're actually very complex. So it makes it really interesting.”
In his spare time, Brian said he likes to play violin, an instrument he has played since he was around 4, as well as badminton and board games with his younger sister, Bella.
Olivia also likes math. The eighth grader is a year ahead of her peers in the subject, taking geometry with ninth graders at Smithtown High School West in the morning.
“It just makes sense to me because there's just one answer,” she said.
Olivia said she was surprised to discover that she was good at spelling after winning the school bee in sixth grade, but she sees the connection between math and grammar. With some exceptions, there’s typically only one way to spell a word.
Olivia’s parents attributed some of her success at spelling to her memory.
“Her memory is just incredible,” said her mother, Angelika Lipiec. “Sometimes that backfires on us because she remembers everything that we've ever promised her.”
Olivia, who likes to read and plays volleyball and lacrosse, said she’s interested in cinematography and wants to be a filmmaker when she grows up.
Katherine Neumair, Olivia’s middle school French teacher, said the teen is diligent and collaborative with her classmates.
“She has a great attitude, too,” Neumair said. “She's always smiling. She always has something to share. She always participates. And she really works well with everyone.”
Neumair said she sees Olivia make connections with words from the languages she knows.
“She is just a natural for language,” she said.
Two Long Island spelling alums will return to the stage of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in May to give the championship another shot.
Brian Liu, 13, from Great Neck, and Olivia Lipiec, 14, of Smithtown, will represent Long Island against some of the nation’s best spellers. Both teens had made it to the national stage before, Brian in 2023 and Olivia in 2024.
Brian attends Great Neck North Middle School and Olivia attends Accompsett Middle School in Smithtown. The two share an interest in languages and math: Both children of immigrants, they speak English and the native tongue of their parents — Mandarin for Brian and Polish for Olivia. Brian is also learning Latin and Olivia is learning French.
Their goals are similar too — to do better than they did last time. Brian was stopped short of the finals and Olivia was eliminated in the preliminaries.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- Two Long Island middle school students will compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in May.
- The pair advanced to the national competition after winning a regional championship on March 8.
- The regional contest was held online this year because there was no Long Island sponsor.
“The whole experience, just being in D.C. and competing in the national spelling bee is just really fascinating to me,” Olivia said in an interview this week. “It's a great experience I'm glad to be able to have again.”
The national competition, celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, will take place May 27-29 in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside the nation’s capital.
The two Island winners emerged out of 20 spellers from New York, Virginia and Massachusetts to take the regional championship after a virtual contest March 8, according to Tammy Riddle, director of sales and marketing for the Scripps National Spelling Bee, based in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Across the Island, 102 schools participated, and seven students advanced to the regional final after an online test further narrowed the field, Riddle said.
The bee was held online after ScholarSkills for STARS, an education nonprofit based in upstate New Windsor, stopped sponsoring the regional event this year. Scripps said it is seeking a regional partner to sponsor the program on Long Island.
The last word Brian spelled to earn a winning spot after 17 rounds in a three-hour-long competition was "quetzal,” a type of bird with striking colors. Olivia’s was "bacchius,” a term used in poetry.
'Like a gift for him'
In September, Great Neck North Middle School teacher Dan Del Ferraro said he told his students, including Brian, to reflect on a book they read over the summer. When he was grading the assignments, he noticed Brian used an unusual word: “antanagoge.”
At first, Del Ferraro thought Brian meant to write “antagonism,” the teacher said. But when he looked up antanagoge, he realized Brian had used it intentionally.
Antanagoge means a certain rhetorical technique and does not even appear in the Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary. The noun is used in “fewer than 0.01 occurrences per million words in modern written English,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
For Del Ferraro, that was not the last time he learned a new word through his student.
“It's humbling because I'm an English teacher, but it's like a gift for him,” Del Ferraro said.
Brian Liu in Great Neck. Credit: Newsday/Howard Schnapp
Brian said what intrigues him in words, as well as math, is the patterns in them.
“I like math because there's patterns everywhere,” he said in an interview Monday. “There's also patterns in words. You can eventually trace a lot of words to the same roots.”
Overall, Brian said he likes learning in a “systematical, organized and structured manner.”
A fan of Harry Potter books and fantasy novels, Brian said he is drawn to math’s absolute complexity.
“It's different from reading. Everything only has one answer,” he said. “Some concepts appear simple but they're actually very complex. So it makes it really interesting.”
In his spare time, Brian said he likes to play violin, an instrument he has played since he was around 4, as well as badminton and board games with his younger sister, Bella.
A surprise talent for spelling
Olivia also likes math. The eighth grader is a year ahead of her peers in the subject, taking geometry with ninth graders at Smithtown High School West in the morning.
“It just makes sense to me because there's just one answer,” she said.
Olivia said she was surprised to discover that she was good at spelling after winning the school bee in sixth grade, but she sees the connection between math and grammar. With some exceptions, there’s typically only one way to spell a word.
Olivia Lipiec at her Smithtown home Wednesday. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
Olivia’s parents attributed some of her success at spelling to her memory.
“Her memory is just incredible,” said her mother, Angelika Lipiec. “Sometimes that backfires on us because she remembers everything that we've ever promised her.”
Olivia, who likes to read and plays volleyball and lacrosse, said she’s interested in cinematography and wants to be a filmmaker when she grows up.
Katherine Neumair, Olivia’s middle school French teacher, said the teen is diligent and collaborative with her classmates.
“She has a great attitude, too,” Neumair said. “She's always smiling. She always has something to share. She always participates. And she really works well with everyone.”
Neumair said she sees Olivia make connections with words from the languages she knows.
“She is just a natural for language,” she said.
Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.
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