SLIPKNOT Fan Wins Spelling Bee; Moves Forward To National Competition

SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor wasn't kidding when he toldMTV News last July that he liked to pepper the band's songs with big words that are demanding enough to warrant that a page or two of the group's album liner notes be reserved for a glossary.

Taylor said at the time, "There are lots of kids who come up to me and say, 'Man, I didn't know what the hell 'loquacious' was until I looked it up,' or 'I didn't know what 'thalidomide' [from 'Iowa''s 'Left Behind'] meant.' So it's very cool to be able to do that and pass down the knowledge."

According to a report published in today's edition of New Jersey's Burlington County Times, SLIPKNOT fan Paul Cyr Jr. an eighth-grader at Green Bank School in Washington Township, won the Burlington County leg of the 78th annual Scripps Howard Spelling Bee Saturday afternoon (March 12).

Decked out in a black tie, camouflage cap and a SLIPKNOT shirt, Paul said he studied only about a half-hour Friday night for the contest and said he never expected to win.

"I don't know how I did it," Paul said. "I'm pretty excited."

Kathleen Cyr, Paul's mother, said she never doubted that her son would win.

"I'm so proud of him," she said. "There's no better gift than having a son like him."

Paul bested 48 other fifth- through eighth-grade contestants yesterday as skilled area spellers stumbled on a bevy of perplexing words such as chres-tomathy (a selection of literary passages),schussboomer (a type of skier) and gibbet (a device used to hang someone).

As champion of the county bee, Paul and a guest won a trip to compete against 250 other spellers in the national competition that starts in Washington, D.C., on May 29. The national competition is broadcast on ESPN. He also won a $100 Savings Bond, a plaque and a massive Webster's dictionary he said he'd be studying in the weeks before the national bee.