The sigh was a year in the making.

When 12-year-old Jake Smith heard the last word he'd have to spell Saturday to become 2007 Colorado State Spelling Bee champion, he exhaled a breath that was audible throughout the auditorium.

Then he grabbed the microphone. He knew this word and he was eager to let everyone know that a year of studying had paid off.

"U-l-t-i-m-o-g-e-n-i-t-u-r-e," said Smith, with an exterior composure that belied the excitement within.

"I was shaking," Smith said. "But that was just because I knew (the word) and I thought I was going to win."

The seventh-grader from Highlands Ranch was soon holding a gold trophy to applause at the Colorado Convention Center.

Smith, who attends Mountain Ridge Middle School, now heads to Washington, D.C., to compete in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee on May 27 through June 1.

"It's going to be fun, taking a family vacation," Smith said. "It's also going to be hard spelling all those words."

Second place at the 67th annual spelling bee sponsored by the Rocky Mountain News went to Rachel Huerta, an eighth-grader who is home-schooled.

Jessica Ray, an eighth-grader from Challenge School, placed third in the event, which began with 288 contestants.

But Saturday's contest - which drew many sympathetic and suspenseful "oohs and aahs" from the crowd - was nearly swept by Smith and his two brothers, Zack, 14, who tied for fifth, and Alec, 10, who finished fourth.

Not surprising for a family that spends a lot of its evenings playing spelling games.

For the past year, Jake Smith had been determined to improve his third-place finish as a sixth-grader. He went home and began reading through the dictionary immediately after the 2006 competition.

His brothers, Zack and Alec, who had tied for fourth, also were hungry to do better the next year.

Zack kept a journal of difficult words he found in books. Alec, the most competitive of the brothers, memorized every word thrown his way while trying to win the impromptu "Sparkle" spelling games that are frequent entertainment in the Smith household.

The game begins as one of thousands of potential spelling bee words is read.

The Smith brothers spell the word in unison, taking turns uttering the letters until the last one, when either the speller or whoever is next tries to yell "Sparkle!" first to chalk up points.

The game helps the brothers visualize the words and anticipate each letter.

No one yells louder, or argues as fiercely to determine who said "Sparkle" first, as Alec, who frequently pleads his case to his parents, David and Kirstin, who act as referees.

But the brothers' competitive nature doesn't mean they don't help each other.

When their parents give them words to write on a dry-erase board, they often correct each other.

"No, no, no," Alec said last week to Zack, reaching over to erase what he had written.

"Excuse me for being stupid," joked Zack.

At a lunch table Saturday in a room among hundreds of would- be spelling champions, Alec playfully suggested to Jake that if he and Zack were in the final two, he should let Zack win because he's in eighth grade and it's the last year he can compete.

"No," answered Jake.

And as each contender walked off the stage, preceded by the ding of a bell that marked a misspelled word, it seemed inevitable there would be a showdown among the three brothers.

In the end, however, it was Jake, admittedly the most anxious of the three - he's known for licking his fingers and then putting them in his ears when he's nervous - left on the stage with one other competitor.

Prayer, he said, calmed him down, and as the pool of spellers shrank, he began to think he had "more of a chance of winning."

How siblings did

Three Highlands Ranch brothers were among 288 competitors who went head to head at the state spelling bee over the weekend. Here's how they fared:

• Jake Smith, 12, Mountain Ridge Middle School. state champion

Winning word: Ultimogeniture, meaning a system of inheritance where the youngest son or daughter or collateral heir succeeds to the estate.

"I had studied it before, so I pretty much knew it," Jake said.

• Zack Smith, 14, Platte River Middle School, finished fifth

Word missed: Garniture, meaning something that equips or furnishes.

"I said a letter I didn't mean," he said, explaining that he said "e" first instead of "u." "It doesn't matter. I'm not going to kick myself about it. We're still going to D.C."

• Alec Smith, 10, Summit View Elementary, finished fourth

Word missed: Gummiferous, which means producing or bearing gum.

A disappointed Alec was in tears after the event and was comforted by his family and encouraged by the competition's head judge. "I like the way you see words," Ed Low, told Alec, a sixth-grader next year who has three more chances to win the state contest.

morenoi@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2895

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