Melody Hinkle was on stage waiting for the final word to be presented during a 24-round spelling bee where she faced off against 34 other contestants.
The word was tácito, a word she knew immediately, but she wrote it down on her white board just in case. She spelled out each letter in the word, including the accent mark, correctly.
Hinkle, a White Settlement student, won this year’s National Spanish Spelling Bee in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on July 12…