GoodHeart | Aunt Lize Spelling Bee honours family heritage

His island roots mean the world to Kurtious Loney-Walsh. The New York-based medical professional, whose parents were raised in Jamaica before migrating to the United States, returns to The Rock every August for a philanthropic venture he established to reward students with sharp vocabularies. That work has become part of the Loney-Walsh Collection, his non-profit organisation dedicated to expanding literacy, educational opportunities and access to resources for under-served communities in Jamaica and the United States.

The Aunt Lize Spelling Bee, named in memory of Loney-Walsh’s late maternal great-grandmother, staged its sixth annual iteration in his family’s hometown of Albion Mountain, St Mary, last month. Thirty primary and secondary school students from the area received new laptops, tablets and cash incentives after demonstrating their word smarts in the competition.

For the unabashedly patriotic Loney-Walsh, pouring back into local youth has become one of his priorities. “I grew up between rural Jamaica and Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Neither environment was a place where opportunities were just handed to you,” he told GoodHeart in a post-spelling bee conversation at Albion Mountain Primary School.

“Along the way, there have been people who have invested in me, encouraged me, and provided opportunities. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised that success can’t only be about what I can accumulate for myself. At some point you have to ask, ‘What am I doing with what I’ve been given?’”

To this end, Loney-Walsh, a board-certified emergency medicine physician associate in The Big Apple, built a platform that combines education and opportunity.

Cue the Aunt Lize Spelling Bee for children and teens in the hilly northeastern parish where Loney-Walsh’s mother grew up. His parents, Lavern Walsh and Randolph Loney, now work as a social worker and aviation engineer, respectively, in the United States.

“I wanted to create something that made children excited about learning, but I wanted it to be more than just a spelling competition. I wanted children to challenge themselves and be recognised for their academic abilities, and leave feeling like somebody was investing in them,” he explained about the contest that launched in 2020.

“The idea was to make it competitive, but also fun and encouraging. I never wanted a child to feel as though they shouldn’t participate because they aren’t the strongest speller in their class. Just having the courage to stand in front of a crowd and compete is something worth celebrating,” he shared.

SEPARATE CATEGORIES

The competition features four categories: grades one to three, grades four to five, grades six to eight, and high school. Participants spell words appropriate for their respective categories, with the difficulty increasing as the rounds progress.

“The format is straightforward,” Loney-Walsh noted, “We keep going until the children are eliminated one by one. The last three standing in each category are declared winners, with first place being the child who spells every word correctly.”

A distinguishing feature of the annual competition is that no participant leaves empty-handed. This year’s staging had a budget of $1.5 million (approximately US$9,500).

“It remains important to me that while there are winners, every child receives something. We provided backpacks and school supplies, as well as meals. The larger prizes are meant to reward achievement and give the winners a meaningful contribution to their continued education. We want every child to walk away knowing that their effort mattered,” added Loney-Walsh. He was joined on this year’s trip by several family members, including his wife, Seble, a gallerist, and his brother, Jamaine, a basketball coach, who assisted with the coordination and execution of the event.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Back in New York, Loney-Walsh’s work has included evaluating and treating patients at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Centre in Manhattan, as well as at urgent-care settings and emergency departments across the metropolis.

“What attracted me to medicine was knowing it could immediately make a difference in somebody’s life. Emergency medicine in particular fits my personality as you have to think quickly, solve problems and communicate with people from every possible background,” he explained.

The dual citizen believes the potential to achieve greatness resides within the next generation of St Mary and beyond. “There are incredibly bright and talented children in rural communities across Jamaica. Sometimes what is lacking is not ability, but access, exposure and resources,” he noted.

For 16-year-old Tanique Thompson, who snagged first place in the high-school category, nerves of steel defined her competitive disposition. “I was actually very confident during the spelling bee,” revealed the Marcus Garvey Technical High student, who is entering Grade 11 for the new academic year. “I prepared for it, so while the competition was going on, I kept thinking that I could win. I just tried to stay focused and did my best. I was very proud of myself for winning.”

Preparation for the competition, according to Thompson, involved studying a provided list of words in advance. “Whenever I came across a word that I wasn’t familiar with, I would look it up online so I could understand what it meant and learn how to spell it correctly”, explained the teenager who aspires to become a soldier.

“I like the idea of being able to serve and defend my country, and I think being a soldier takes a lot of courage, strength and discipline,” she added.

Meanwhile, Boscobel Primary student Desmond Adams, who emerged the victor in the grades-four-to-five category, admitted to “feeling a bit nervous. I was thinking I was going to lose, but I won.”

The 10-year-old told GoodHeart he loves cracking books open, hence his knack for word retention. With his sights set on a career in medicine, young Adams said, “I see myself as a doctor because I am very helpful and patient.”

Already looking towards the competition’s seventh staging next August, Loney-Walsh remains guided by the legacy of the great-grandmother whose name it bears.

“I met her when I was a baby, so I don’t carry my own memories of her the way I wish I could. What I have instead is everything my family has told me about her, and what she left behind in Albion Mountain.”

The tense is already correct; it just needs “and” for the final item:

His great-grandmother delivered babies, fed families who had little or no food, and helped to clothe children to go to school.

“She did it all without expecting anything in return; it was simply who she was. Naming the spelling bee after her isn’t about honouring someone I knew well. It’s about honouring a standard before I was born. Building a life away from Jamaica, coming back and leaving without doing something would have felt like a betrayal of everything Aunt Lize had modelled for us,” Loney-Walsh explained.

goodheart@gleanerjm.com