Latest news with #ScrippsNationalBee
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Chesapeake student competes in Scripps National Bee
Jun. 4—Makes it to third round of 100th anniversary event WASHINGTON, D.C. — It was long road getting there, but a Chesapeake student took part in the Scripps National Spelling Bee on the outskirts of the nation's capital over the weekend. Joseph Keffer, who just finished fifth grade, qualified for the event after winning the district bee for southeast Ohio in Athens in the spring. Prior to that, he won the Lawrence County Spelling Bee in December, for which he qualified by winning his school's bee. Keffer was one of 243 regional champions to make it nationals. The Scripps National Bee, which is in its 100th year, took place from May 25-30 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. "It was awesome," Joseph said of his experience. "And I made a lot of friends." At the national bee, Keffer made it through Round 1, correctly spelling "furan," then succeeded in Round 2. He then moved into Round 3, which was a written test to qualify for the event's quarterfinals. Keffer's mother, Laura, said he came only two points from that threshold. "He was close," she said, noting that he and those eliminated at that point tied for 100th place overall. "He was 100th in the 100th. Our goal this year was to make it through rounds 1 and 2 and we accomplished that." The spelling bee is open to fourth through eighth graders and, with three years of eligibility ahead of him, Joseph has the opportunity to try again. "Oh, yes," he said, when asked if he plans to compete again in the next school year. His mother summed up the family's experience. "Being here for the 100th spelling bee, being at the national spelling bee is something I never dreamed we'd do and it has been very special to be a part of it," Laura Keffer said. "We are very proud of Joseph and what he has accomplished." Keffer is the third Lawrence County speller to make it to the national bee this century. Last year, Meredith Dunlap, of Fairland Middle School, competed in the event as a seventh grader. (Dunlap came in second at this year's county and regional bees). In 2010, Felicity Jenkins, then a sixth grader at Symmes Valley, made the trip to nationals. The bee capped off a strong year for Keffer. He was also part of the fifth grade Quiz Bowl team, which won the Lawrence County ESC's talented and gifted tournament at the end of the school year, while, a year prior, he was on the winning team for the ESC's Math Pong event. You Might Like News Proctorville woman killed in WV crash Education FLE kindergarteners celebrate with Wyngate residents (WITH GALLERY) Business Azure Standard announces $9.3M investment in county News Ashland woman killed in UTV accident
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dixon's Wadsworth named Scripps National Spelling Bee's national volunteer of the year
May 28—Dixon's Tom Wadsworth has been selected this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee National Volunteer of the Year in recognition of his 43 years as the pronouncer for the Sauk Valley area's spelling bee. The award was announced Monday, May 26, during opening ceremonies in Washington. Wadsworth, 72, first became the pronouncer for the Lee County Spelling Bee in 1983 when he was the morning personality at WSDR radio in Sterling. Over the years, he has declared 43 local champions and sent them to Washington to represent the local bee, which is now the Lee Ogle Whiteside Spelling Bee. "The impact of a good pronouncer is truly invaluable," said Corrie Loeffler, executive director of the Scripps National Bee. "For decades, Tom has given spellers in his region the best chance to shine onstage, thanks to his rare combination of passion and skill." The local bee, organized by Chris Tennyson and Michele Hopp of the Regional Office of Education 47, is held annually at the Dixon High School auditorium. Scripps presented two other national awards Monday. Nikki Montana of the Edwin Forrest Elementary School in Philadelphia received the Educator of the Year award, and the Akron Beacon Journal of Akron, Ohio, received the Regional Partner of the Year award. The National Bee is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The awards were presented at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center near Washington as 243 champion spellers from around the nation gathered to compete for the national champion trophy to be presented Thursday night, May 29. Parker Zimmerly, 14, of Amboy Junior High, the 2025 champion of the Lee Ogle Whiteside regional bee, was eliminated in National Bee competition on Tuesday. After three rounds of competition, 99 spellers have advanced to the quarterfinals. Given the word gelilah, Zimmerly spelled it galeila. In Judaism, gelilah refers to the rolling up of the scroll of the law after reading from it in the synagogue. Zimmerly has been a school champion three times. His mother, Joanie Zimmerly, a second-grade teacher at Amboy Central, is accompanying Parker this week in Washington, Wadsworth said.
Yahoo
02-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Plain Local student wins Repository Spelling Bee, earns spot in national event
JACKSON TWP. — U-V-U-L-A. This was the word that stood between Oakwood Middle School's Blaze Blacketer and the title in the Canton Repository's 79th Regional Final Spelling Bee. By the event's the seventh round, only two competitors remained − Blacketer and Tommy Schervish from St. Michael School in Plain Township. Blaze went first, correctly spelling 'nonchalance,' followed by Tommy, who needed to spell 'ufology.' He missed. To secure the victory, Blacketer had to correctly spell one more word in an eighth round. He didn't hesitate, correctly spelling the word that means "a pendent fleshy lobe in the middle of the posterior border of the soft palate." In other words ... it's the piece of flesh you see hanging down when you look at your throat in a mirror. The victory wins Blacketer a trip to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in May outside Washington, D.C. Schervish took second place, and Haven O'Kelley-Hensley from Carrolton Middle/High School took third. "I didn't think I'd make it past the second round," Blacketer said. "I was surprised." Thirty-three students from Stark, Tuscarawas, Carroll and Holmes counties started the contest Saturday at Kent State University at Stark's Conference Center. The bee moved quickly from its very start, with more than a third of contestants missing their first words. Only 19 moved into the second round. Another eight were knocked out in Round Two. By the end of Round Three, only seven students remained. It got more difficult the farther into the match the students got. Only two students were eliminated in Round 4, and another two in Round 5. O'Kelley-Hensley went out in Round 6 on the word 'narcoleptic.' Schervish followed in Round 7, before Blacketer locked up the victory for Stark County. Blacketer's victory is only the second time a Stark speller has gone to the national event in the past five years. Tuscarawas County spellers competed in the Scripps National Bee in 2021, 2023 and 2024. The speller who won the title in 2020, Nick Williams, also was from Tuscarawas County, but that year the national bee was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The speller in 2022, Julianne Lillestedt of Canton Country Day School, won the Canton Repository bee to move on. Reflecting on his second-place finish, Schervish said he was happy to bring a trophy home. "I hope they're proud of me," he said of his classmates at St. Michael School. "I'm excited to be honored with this award." Tommy said he wished he could have won, but he was gracious about the experience. "I think I wish I could have closed it out better, but kudos to the first-place winner," he said, adding that he's looking forward to competing again next year. "He works really hard," said Sarah Schervish, Tommy's mother, "and just to get to this point, it's really impressive." Tom Schervish, his father, said his second-place finish was a testament to his son's hard work. "The amount of books he would go through on a weekly basis is crazy," he said. Along with the trophy, a plaque that goes to his school and bragging rights, Blacketer's victory comes a trip to Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. Spelling bee competition will be May 27-29. Blacketer will be competing in an important year for the Scripps bee. Organizers will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first national spelling bee. He said he's looking forward to traveling. "I'm excited. I don't think I'm going to win nationals, but I didn't think I was going to win this either," he said. "I'm just happy to be here." Lauren Thompson, his mother, said she was so excited to see Blacketer win the whole thing. "This is the third year in a row (he's competed), first year that he's gotten first place for his school," she said. "I am so proud of him." This article originally appeared on The Repository: Blaze Blacketer of Plain Local wins Canton Repository spelling bee
Miami Herald
26-02-2025
- General
- Miami Herald
Meet the winners of the 2025 Miami Herald Spelling Bee from Miami-Dade and Broward
The waiting room was full of jitters on Wednesday morning as some of South Florida's best spellers and their families prepared for the 85th annual Miami Herald Spelling Bee at the Charles F. Dodge City Center Pembroke Pines. Some students were going over their lists of words. Siblings took naps on the tables. The annual spelling bee features two contests – 25 students from Broward County compete in the morning and in the afternoon 25 champion spellers from Miami-Dade/Monroe Counties go head to head. The winner from each bee will go on to compete at the end of May in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC., a coveted competition celebrating 100 years this year. Last year, the winner of the national competition won $50,000 among other smaller prizes. The local winners receive a trophy and a $100 gift card to Books and Books. All 50 competitors took home a dictionary, courtesy of Books and Books. Before the Broward bee began, the spellers sat on the stage and did some stretching. Alana Kaplan, the head judge and moderator, asked the kids to make a funny face to get their wiggles out. The Miami Herald Spelling Bee is serious business. If spellers need to attend the bathroom during the bee, they must be escorted by a designated person. They were asked to take off their smart watches and to take a pledge of integrity. Photo gallery: 85th Miami Herald Spelling Bee 'Do not worry about spaces, dashes or capitalization,' explained Kaplan, whose daughter Simone was the bee's pronouncer for the Miami-Dade competition. Simone was the runner-up at the Scripps National Bee in 2019. 'All you have to do is spell the word in the right order,' she reassured the spellers. Several hours and many rounds After 11 rounds of competition, Hadi Abbasi, a 6th-grader from Franklin Academy Pembroke Pines Middle School, won the Broward bee with the word 'teleprompter.' 'I thought they were going to give me an impossible word, so I was very relieved when I heard a word that I can spell,' said Abbasi, as he stood to the side of the stage and posed for photos. Abbasi enjoyed the process of preparing for the spelling bee. 'It taught me the history of the words and how they are formed,' he said. Nikhil Sha of Palmetto Middle School won the Miami-Dade and Monroe County bee by spelling the word 'bodacious,' meaning remarkable and noteworthy. After receiving the award, Sha posed for photos as strings of colorful paper confetti were launched into the air. 'The explosion of confetti caught me off guard,' said Sha. Sha said this is the fourth year he has tried to win the spelling bee, and that he approached studying by looking at groups of words and noticing their similarities. That helped him with his second to last word which was 'zygolobous.' He was able to spell 'zygolobous' after asking for the part of speech, realizing it was an adjective, and knowing that many adjectives end in 'ous.' Sha's mom, Aarthy Chandrasekaran said that today was a stressful day, but that he did work hard to prepare. 'He's been reading a lot of books, so I am super happy and excited,' she said. The Miami-Dade and Monroe spelling bee went on for over 3 hours, with 14 rounds of competitions. By round four, there were just nine spellers left. As the number of students remaining in the competition dwindled, the spellers looked around at the empty seats, realizing they were getting further along in the competition, and getting progressively more nervous. During the sixth round, there were long dramatic pauses and time seemed to stand still as spellers asked for detailed definitions, and pronunciation of words before attempting to spell it out. The joy of competition During the bee there were audible sighs of relief after a word was spelled correctly and faces of shock when they were told that the word was spelled incorrectly. One frustrated student walked off the stage before the judge could give the correct spelling of the word. David Furman, a student from Aventura City of Excellence Charter School clenched his fist in excitement every time he correctly spelled a word. Toward the end of the competition, he even patted himself on the back while walking back to his seat from the microphone. Furman ended up 2nd place in the Miami-Dade and Monroe competition. The runner-up for Broward was Dahana Destinoble, an 8th grader from Sunrise Middle School. Her mom gave her a big kiss after learning she came in second. 'Oh, I'm so proud of you!' said her mother. Although other spellers were not so lucky as to win, they still gave it a shot. Ivanshi Gadani, 13, competed in the spelling bee for the second year in a row. The 8th grader from West Glades Middle School says spelling bees are a nice stress reliever. Unfortunately, Gadani spelled her first word wrong. She was asked to spell 'ragwort,' which she was told was a homonym, a word which can easily be confused with other words. During the Bee, one speller yelled 'yes!' into the mic after spelling 'adnate' correctly, sparking laughter from the audience. Like clockwork, the parents erupted into applause after each speller completed their word, regardless of whether it was spelled correctly. The Miami Herald Spelling Bee also had a special visit from a representative of the Scripps National Spelling competition, Bryan Witt. 'It's so fun to watch the joyful expression on their face when they get it right,' he said.
