Aaron has been spelling champion at Isla Vista Elementary School for the past two years. On March 3, he won the 1999 Santa Barbara County Spelling Bee for 4 through 6th grade students. There were 98 contestants who came from schools around Santa Barbara county in the spelling bee. Students were eliminated after making three errors.      After 32 words at levels three and four, 27 kids were left. Round seven began with level five words, and at the 61st word there were 12 left. At word 70 there were 8 contestants left, who made it all the way to the end of the list of words that had been on the study list. Beginning with word 80, lots of kids missed the words. Aaron won on word 102, "frangipani". His closest competitors were a 6th grader named Debbie and a 4th grader named Teddy from Montecito Union School.

Aaron liked to make sentences as he studied his spelling words. His dad wrote these examples (the tiebreaker words are italicized):

     A guy with a louche look about him came up to Aaron. "Is this guy a Kamikaze?"  Aaron thought. Perhaps he wants to become my successor as spelling champ? I bet he doesn't know the least bit about nomenclature. In fact, his licentiousness will probably get him into trouble pretty soon. Sure enough, a brouhaha followed. It didn't stop until a raptor swooped down and tore his arm off. That was a visceral sight, I can assure you! He went into gyrations and almost spun off the stage. They only stopped when he sniffed a little mullein. His assistants applied some maquillage to make him look good again. He was soon shot down with a fusillade of level 5 words. Nonetheless, he maintained his insouciant attitude. That is, until he was completely knocked out with a whiff of frangipani perfume. Aaron leaned back, enjoying his hard-earned victory.