CINCINNATI, May 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Scripps National
Spelling Bee, presented by Kindle, reaches a significant milestone
this year — its 90th national bee. Champion
spellers, all 291 of them, and their families will converge on the
Washington, D.C., area next week
to participate and celebrate.
In 1925, 11-year-old Frank
Neuhauser correctly spelled gladiolus to become the first
national champion. The math adds up correctly when one considers
that the national finals were suspended due to World War II from
1943-1945.
"The Scripps National Spelling Bee takes great pride in its
legacy of excellence," said Paige
Kimble, executive director of the program. "Think of the
generations of families and millions of students the spelling bee
has positively impacted throughout its history. What started as a
quaint contest with nine students has flourished into a national
treasure where hard work is recognized and rewarded, and the
lessons learned can last a lifetime."
The spellers are among the top 0.000026 percent of more than 11
million students who initially participated in spelling bees held
in classrooms, schools and local sponsored events. They come from
all 50 U.S. states, the District of
Columbia, American Samoa,
Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Department of Defense
Schools in Europe. Eleven spellers
represent the Bahamas,
Canada, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan and South
Korea.
The spellers range in age from 6 to 15. Seventy-three spellers
previously competed in the national finals. Twenty-nine spellers
have relatives who previously participated in a combined 51 Scripps
National Spelling Bees.
The 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee will take place
May 30-June 1 at the Gaylord National
Resort and Convention Center in Oxon
Hill, Maryland. The Scripps National Spelling Bee and Kindle
are working together to further the belief that reading, spelling
and vocabulary are critically important to a child's lifelong
achievement.
"Before becoming a spelling expert, kids often start as avid
readers. At Amazon, we're committed to inspiring kids and families
to become passionate about reading, which is why our Kindle
e-readers include features like Kindle FreeTime, Word Wise and
Vocabulary Builder, helping build confidence to take on more
complex books and learn new and challenging words along the way,"
said Arthur Van Rest, general manager, Kindle. "We're excited to
take part in helping Scripps National Spelling Bee celebrate 90
years."
Activities for all participants in the Bee this year:
- The traditional Memorial Day
picnic will take place at Nationals Park, home of the Washington
Nationals, the city's Major League Baseball franchise.
- Monday night's opening ceremony will be a celebration of the
history of Bee champions.
- Kindle Corner returns for spellers and families. The
interactive space provided by Kindle features a lounge area to
relax and read a favorite book; an alphabet soup foam pit reserved
just for kids; and a Kindle wall that will showcase customized book
covers created for each of the champion spellers.
- The Spellebrity Video Contest Premiere returns for its second
year to recognize the creativity of young video producers. Five
Finalist teams won expenses-paid trips to the Scripps National
Spelling Bee. Held Tuesday evening, this event showcases the teams'
videos. The spellers will vote for their favorite video, and each
member of the winning team will win a prize of $1,000 and a trophy.
- The Scripps National Spelling Bee has a robust plan for sharing
the competition and behind-the-scenes excitement
with Twitter competition posts and Facebook
Live reports. Fans of the Bee also can engage
on Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat (scrippsbee).
- The Bee posts daily photos to Flickr during Bee Week. The
photos are searchable by speller number. Use 2017speller10 to get
Grace Jones from New Carlisle, Indiana. Please give photo
credit to: Mark Bowen/Scripps
National Spelling Bee.
The Bee on ESPN:
For the 24th consecutive year, ESPN and its family of
channels will provide coverage of the Bee with hosts Kevin Negandhi, Paul
Loeffler and Michele Steele.
Spellers will take to the stage for the first time on Wednesday, May 31.
- Preliminaries from 8 a.m. to
about 12:15 p.m. EDT (streamed live
on the ESPN App).
- Preliminaries and announcement of Finalists from 1:15 p.m. to about 6:15
p.m. EDT (streamed live on the ESPN App).
The Finals will take place on Thursday,
June 1.
- Finals 10 a.m. to about
2 p.m. EDT (watch live on
ESPN2).
- Finals continue 8:30-10:30 p.m.
EDT (watch live on ESPN).
"Bee" Informed:
The redesigned spellingbee.com offers information about the
spellers, the Bee's history, the Bee Blog and a sample test. During
Bee Week, the website also will feature round results and regular
competition updates.
Each year, the Scripps National Spelling Bee evaluates its
program and welcomes feedback from fans and constituents for the
consideration of rule changes. These are the significant new rules
for 2017:
- Bee officials will administer a Tiebreaker Test to all spellers
remaining in the competition at 6
p.m. on Thursday, June 1. The
test will consist of 12 spelling words, which spellers will
handwrite, and 12 multiple choice vocabulary questions.
- If it becomes mathematically impossible for a single champion
to emerge victorious through the administration of a maximum 25
consecutive rounds involving three or fewer spellers, Bee officials
will disclose the Tiebreaker Test scores of the remaining spellers.
The judges will declare the speller with the highest score the
Champion. In the event of a tie for the highest Tiebreaker Test
score, the judges will declare the spellers with the tying highest
scores co-Champions.
- For the spelling portion of the Preliminaries Test, spellers
will handwrite their spellings on Bee-formatted test forms, which
will be hand-graded. In the past several years, the Bee used
computerized forms for the entire test.
- Merriam-Webster Unabridged is the official source of words for
the Bee. The previous official source was "Merriam-Webster's Third New International
Dictionary."
About the Scripps National Spelling Bee:
The Scripps
National Spelling Bee is the nation's largest and longest-running
educational program. The purpose of the Scripps National Spelling
Bee is to help students improve their spelling, increase their
vocabularies, learn concepts and develop correct English usage that
will help them all of their lives. Visit spellingbee.com for more
information about the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which is
administered on a not-for-profit basis by The E.W. Scripps
Company.
About Scripps:
The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE: SSP)
serves audiences and businesses through a growing portfolio of
television, radio and digital media brands. Scripps is one of the
nation's largest independent TV station owners, with 33 television
stations in 24 markets and a reach of nearly one in five U.S.
households. It also owns 34 radio stations in eight markets.
Scripps also runs an expanding collection of local and national
digital journalism and information businesses, including satire and
humor video and web brand Cracked, podcast industry leader Midroll
Media and over-the-top video news service Newsy. Scripps also
produces television shows including "The List" and "The Now" and
runs an award-winning investigative reporting newsroom in
Washington, D.C. Founded in 1878,
Scripps has held for decades to the motto, "Give light and the
people will find their own way."
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather
than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to
operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews,
1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment
by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire
tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products
and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information,
visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
Contacts:
For questions or general
inquiries:
513-977-3040
Spellingbee.com/contact
Twitter.com/ScrippsBee
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SOURCE The E.W. Scripps Company