By Gerardo R. Partido
Variety News Staff

JOHN Doner of Fremont, whose father emigrated from Guam in 1997, has won the San Francisco Chronicle Spelling Bee.
The San Francisco Chronicle described Doner as not only a flawless speller, but a self-made one, too.
His father, Oliver, a mechanic, admitted that he was never much of a speller and his mother, Cecelia, could not help him much with the spelling contest because she works until 10:30 p.m. as a medical technician.
“Because of that, I couldn’t spend time with them, so I had to take action myself,” Doner told the Chronicle.
This is Doner’s fourth year in competitive spelling, and he’s taken it to a level all his own. Doner has his own method of training for the bee. He studies Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary and jots down the tough words in a notebook. And he created a tool that allows him to see the pronunciation, but not the spelling, so he can practice by himself.
According to the Chronicle, Doner did get a couple of lucky breaks. In the fifth round, while other kids were grappling with “nihilism” and “arpeggio,” Doner breezed through “grok,” a ridiculously easy word as long as you know the science fiction novel “Stranger in a Strange Land.”
The Chronicle reported that there was a mini-crisis when Doner was given his final word, “moiety.” KCBS anchorman and stellar bee word pronouncer Stan Bunger made a rare slip, pronouncing it “my-ett-tee,” instead of “moi-ett-ty.”
Bunger caught the error immediately and withdrew the word, instead giving Doner “cerumen,” which is the polite term for earwax. Doner spelled it without hesitation to win the championship and a trip to Washington, D.C. for the National Spelling Bee on May 30 and 31.