Thank you for publishing the article in the June 6 Columbia Flier telling of 11 young Maryland spellers, one of whom is from Columbia, who made it to the national level of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Mitsuki Ota is a seventh-grade student and your headline and article should have congratulated him on his remarkable achievement. You instead published material that focused on his "defeat." The bold headline above the young boy's photo screams, "Local speller falls short." Reaching the national level of this competition is an accomplishment. Not winning first place is anything but being defeated and falling short.
Are none of you parents? Were you never in the seventh grade?
In the future, could you please show a modicum of compassion and sensitivity when writing about young people?
I have no relationship to young Mr. Ota, his school, his parents, or the spelling bee, but was disappointed to see how callous you could be to this young boy.
David Phillips
Columbia