Sean Gibbons, a 13-year old eighth-grader at Bryan Middle School in Elmhurst, recently won the DuPage Regional Spelling Bee, qualifying to compete in late May against some 200 other spellers in the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

In the sixth round of the county contest, Sean clinched his win by successfully spelling “ossuary,” defined as a repository for bones. For readers vaguely familiar with ossuary, how about the word Sean spelled before that? That word was “chrysophyte,” a kind of algae.

“Sean loves dictionaries,” said his mother Regina. He began collecting dictionaries when he was about six, Sean said.

Sean first attended Jackson Elementary School up to second grade, but then switched for two years to Maercker Elementary in Westmont for two years. There he was in a special program for kids with autism, his mother said. He returned to Jackson before moving on to middle school at Bryan.

Sean’s father Ryan said his son’s autism can result in “an intense focus on things he enjoys.”

Words and spelling are clearly objects of that intense focus.

“I noticed that there were some patterns in words,” Sean said of his spelling ability. “Also I asked the definition (of spelling bee words) anytime I was unsure.”

Despite his practice and study of words and word lists, Sean said he wasn’t immune to nerves during the spelling bee.

According to his father, as Sean stood at the microphone for the last rounds of the DuPage contest, he said out loud, “This is the scariest moment of my life.”

But he took a deep breath and went on to spell the last two words correctly to win.

Sean had some advice for aspiring spelling champions. “Try your best and prepare ahead of time.”

In winning the county contest, Sean topped about two dozen other spellers who were, like Sean, winners of previous spelling competitions in their schools and districts before the county contest.

For the national spelling bee, eligible spellers who have won regional contests must not have gone beyond eighth grade or be older than 15. More information on the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee, set for late May in National Harbor, MD just outside Washington, D.C., is at Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Graydon Megan is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.