DAILY NEWS SPELLING BEE C-H-A-M-P-I-O-N PARENTS AS NERVOUS AS COMPETITORS DURING 3-HOUR CONTEST Parents as nervous as competitors during 3-hour contest.

Byline: George B. Sanchez, Staff Writer

"Foraminate" is a synonym for "perforated." It's also the word that 13-year-old Paige Vasseur of Rio Norte Junior High School in the Santa Clarita Valley spelled correctly to win the Daily News Regional Spelling Bee on Saturday.

After months of studying and a competition that lasted nearly three hours, the young competitors shared their excitement - and some relief that it was over - with their parents, who had watched intently and nervously throughout the event at the Skirball Center.

"I can't feel anything right now. I love this," said Paige as she received her trophy. "It's the best feeling you could have."

For the second-place speller, the end was just that. "I'll never have to do it again," said Easun Arunachalam, 12, of Rosemont Middle School in La Crescenta, when the contest was over.

Gisela Factora, a 10-year-old Stevenson Ranch fifth-grader, was at ease after she missed the word "philately," which is stamp collecting.

"I thought it was going to be tough because some of the competitors had words that I didn't know," she said. "(At first) I just felt lucky I didn't get any of those words."

The competition featured a variety of foreign words, including "serdab," a Persian word for a room in a basement, and "kibei," the Japanese term for the child of a Japanese immigrant born in the United States but educated in Japan.

Gisela's mother, Gilena Factora, said she was probably more nervous than her daughter during the bee. "We're very proud of her," the mother said. "She's already a winner just being here, but it's tough and nerve-racking, for parents and grandparents."

The audience of parents and other family members clung to every letter, letting out sighs of disappointment with misspelled words and cheers with each correct spelling.

"There's an intense sense of care on the part of the youngsters as well as the parents," said Sharon Klein, an associate professor at California State University, Northridge, and the bee's pronouncer.

Students grew anxious each time they stood before judges - their young faces squeezed in concentration and heavy breaths that were amplified by the microphone.

Every time a student said "Oh, God" or appeared puzzled by a new word, the audience, mostly parents, responded accordingly.

"It was hard. I couldn't look at her," said John Heaner about his 11-year-old daughter Miranda, who misspelled "estuary."

"This is facing the dragon," he said. "She has to do it on her own."

But such competition, regardless of the outcome, builds character, he said.

"The ding of the bell is a happy sound," he explained. "Every time it rings (for an incorrect answer), it is one word one person will never again misspell."

Not every parent was so optimistic.

"It's terrifying. My stomach was in knots the whole time," said Maria Vasseur, Paige's mom. "That bell - the sound; you don't want to hear that."

If Vasseur wins other bees, she has a chance at making the national contest in Washington, D.C., at the end of May.

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(1 -- 2) Paige Vasseur, 13, an eighth-grader at Rio Norte Junior High in the Santa Clarita Valley, delights Saturday in winning the Daily News Regional Spelling Bee. "It's the best feeling you could have," she later said.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer