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Can a modus operandi for achievement be spelled out? Maybe not, but Isaiah Sasser can definitely spell out any of the words in the question. The 11-year-old took home his fourth first-place win since February over Labor Day weekend, snagging the victory at the Oregon Statewide Spelling Championship among students in grades first through fifth. “I was hoping I’d win,” he said, sitting at a table outside of Cascade Christian Middle School, where he now attends as a sixth-grader. Isaiah said reading is the best way for him to study for spelling competitions, to which he was a newcomer when he participated in Logos Public Charter School’s bee on Feb. 28. He wanted to participate because he was a good speller but also because his parents encouraged him to. His mom, Heidi, thought her son’s natural gravitation toward reading helped his performance more than explicitly studying word lists circulated from Southern Oregon University. “Not that he spent a lot of time spelling,” she said. “He’s just a natural speller.” This spelling competition, unlike the more famed Scripps National Spelling Bee, asks participants to write down their answers rather than recite them in front of a microphone and audience. The participants who get the most right win, round by round. The moment when her son won the statewide competition, held at the Oregon State Fair on Sept. 1, Heidi Sasser said she felt “very proud of him.” “I had tears in my eyes,” she said. “I was so excited.” Isaiah said he felt most excited “probably about the $200.” His first-place win earned him a $100 prize from the competition, which the Elks Club doubled. The Rogue Valley is no newcomer as a region to spelling competitions. Medford students have won the Southern Oregon regional competition a few times, and in 2007, Brendan Prendergast won the Oregon State Spelling Contest as a 16-year-old in the high school competition. Spelling contents don’t just happen in schools. For a number of years, Louie’s Bar and Grill on the Ashland Plaza, now called Louie’s of Ashland, hosted a weekly spelling competition. Oregon Cabaret Theatre also paid tribute to the academic competitions in 2009 by producing the Tony Award-winning musical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” When it comes to his own future in determining the order of letters, Isaiah said he expects to compete in spelling bees again. “I enjoy them,” he said. “They make me nervous but ... it’s nice to find something that I’m good at.” Reach Mail Tribune reporter Kaylee Tornay at [email protected] or 541-776-4497. Follow her on Twitter @ka_tornay.