BRUNSWICK — A eighth grade student from Washington County returned for a second crack at the Maine State Spelling Bee Saturday and booked a ticket to the 2026 Scripps National Spelling Bee in May. He’s also headed somewhere else special — his school’s spring dance.

“It feels really awesome, especially since I made the biggest bet on winning,” winner Tristan Singh said following the bee. “There’s a spring dance coming up at my school next week, and I said I would only (go) if I won.”

Singh, a student at Rose M. Gaffney Elementary School in Machias, beat out 13 other spellers from all over the state at Bowdoin College and took the final prize with the word “stratosphere.” Each student had won bees at the school and county level to win a spot at the state competition.

The bee, which was presented by the Maine Trust for Local News, went on for 18 rounds. It came down to Singh and the student representing Androscoggin County, Turner Elementary School sixth grader Grace Morris.

Spectators were biting their nails as Morris and Singh went back and forth spelling words for six rounds.

At round 14, Singh misspelled “cognizant,” giving Morris the chance to win. Then, Morris misspelled “millennial” — sending the final two into more rounds until a misspelling of “philosophize” ultimately took Morris out of contention.

The heated competition was all in good fun as spellers high-fived each other on stage and celebrated each others’ wins.

“We ended up chatting a lot, (and) cheering each other on,” said sixth grader Harmony Hoyt, the speller from Aroostook County.

And families in the audience were waiting with congratulatory hugs no matter their students’ place in the standings.

“(We’re) so proud of him. He’s worked really hard; he’s done a lot of hours of studying,” said Elizabeth Singh, Tristan’s mom.

Three members of a spelling bee family and the president of Thomas College made up the judging team for the state bee. For each word, students could ask the judges for its definition, origin, part of speech and to use it in a sentence.

Lily Jordan, of San Francisco, returned to her home state to judge this year’s bee after winning it twice as a middle schooler. Her dad, Glenn Jordan, a retired Press Herald sports writer, and her mom, Nancy Jordan, the lead content developer at National Geographic Learning, were also at the judges’ table. Meanwhile, their dog, Webster — like the dictionary — took a nap under the table.

“It almost feels like being a kid again, and feeling the nervousness of the moment, but it’s a lot of fun,” Lily Jordan said.

Jeannine Uzzi, the president of Thomas College, served as the word pronouncer Saturday, a role she’s been coming back to for more than 15 years.

“It’s a great way to reinforce academics in the state,” Uzzi said.

A bee afficionado, Singh plans on competing in the Maine State Civics Bee at Colby College in June — that is, after he appears at the nation’s largest spelling competition.

Keeping open records in the dark is costing taxpayers in Massachusetts

As Sunshine Week comes to a close this week, government officials across the country will once again talk about transparency and accountability. In Massachusetts, however, a series of recent transparency failures shows just how far we have to go here in the Bay State.

For years, watchdog groups, journalists, and ordinary citizens have warned that Massachusetts has one of the weakest public records systems in the country. Deadlines are ignored. Fees are inflated. Enforcement is weak. And when state or local officials would rather keep information hidden, the burden too often falls on private citizens to drag those records into the light.

This is hardly a partisan critique.

On this point, even groups that rarely agree politically can see the same problem. Journalists have been forced to sue for access. Citizens have waited months or years for information that should have been produced promptly. Transparency should not be a left or right wing issue, it should be the bare minimum in a functioning democracy.

The recent examples are hard to ignore. One police department demanded $1.8 million for license-plate-reader records before that fee was later reduced. In Lexington, a school employee was caught discussing whether production costs could be inflated in hopes that a requester would give up. In Somerville, public officials spent years fighting over parking-permit data.

And then there is the state’s climate litigation against Exxon Mobil.

Massachusetts sued Exxon for allegedly misleading the public about climate change. Whatever one thinks of that lawsuit, the state put honesty, disclosure, and accountability at the center of its case. Yet when Exxon sought records related to Massachusetts’ own climate regulations and enforcement, officials resisted disclosure and triggered a separate legal battle over access to those documents.

What surfaced from that fight was incredibly troubling.

A regulation adopted under Massachusetts climate law requires state agencies with large vehicle fleets to track emissions and submit annual compliance reports. Those reports were supposed to begin in 2019. But according to sworn testimony from state environmental officials, not a single agency has submitted them. None. Regulators also acknowledged they had not conducted inspections or taken enforcement actions to verify compliance.

So, while Massachusetts was accusing Exxon of climate deception, the state was also fighting a records request that exposed its own failure to comply with one of its own climate rules.

That hypocrisy should concern everyone.

These reporting requirements exist to measure whether the state is actually doing what it says it is doing. If agencies are not filing required reports, and regulators are not enforcing the rule, then the public has every right to ask whether Massachusetts is serious about the climate commitments it promotes so aggressively.

Taxpayers also have every right to ask how much public money is being spent to keep that failure hidden.

That was the focus of Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance’s recent letter to Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper. According to state spending records, since last April, EEA paid a Boston law firm over $534,000, which includes $417,620 from “Climate Adaptation and Preparedness” funds and over $117,000 from funds labeled as “Environmental Affairs Administration.” When underlying payment records were requested, both DEP and the Comptroller reportedly said they had no responsive records.

Ironically, the money spent defending the state’s failure to comply with open records laws could have gone toward actual climate compliance or easing the burden on ratepayers and taxpayers. Instead, it appears to have been simply wasted on lawyers to allegedly cover up the state’s non-compliance on its own climate mandates.

That concern is even more urgent because the Healey administration recently estimated that their climate agenda could cost an eye-popping $130 billion by 2050, while an independent study by the Fiscal Alliance Foundation estimated the cost to be over $400B for the state. While Massachusetts clearly cannot afford more burdensome regulations that will drive businesses out of the state, if taxpayers are being asked to shoulder massive new climate costs the public should at least be able to trust that the laws already on the books are being followed.

Massachusetts officials are often quick to demand transparency from corporations and the Trump administration. But transparency cannot be a one-way demand.

Our elected leaders at Beacon Hill must hold themselves to the same standard they impose on the public. It is the foundation of public trust and a problem that Massachusetts has ignored for far too long.

Paul Diego Craney is the Executive Director of Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance