Master Kwabena Adu Darko-Asare from the Young Educators Foundation bears huge responsibility as the sole representative for Ghana and Africa who will pitch his strength against 562 other spellers from several states and countries including the US, Canada and Jamaica.

In the past, Ghana has had Lily Tugbah and Gabriel Ennin compete in the 2017 edition as did Adom Appiah although he represented his South Carolina school.

The competition sees 12 and 13-year-olds attempt spelling difficult words in hopes of building their word power as well as help students improve their spelling, increase their vocabularies, learn concepts and develop correct English usage that will help them all their lives.

The Bee takes place at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C., where it has been since 2011. Prior to that, the competition was held at the Grand Hyatt Washington in D.C. from 1996-2010.

This year’s competition features spellers from all 50 US states and countries around the globe who will compete to hold the spelling bee trophy and take the chief cash prize of $50,000.

At the 2018 Bee, 14-year-old Karthik Nemmani from McKinney, Texas, correctly spelled “koinonia” to win the contest.

Spellers at this year’s competition range in age from 7 to 15 and span across grades 1-8. Seven sets of siblings, including two pairs of twins, are competing to claim the spelling title. About a quarter of the field (162) are returning contestants with a pair of spellers making their fifth appearance.

Dr. Bailly returns for his 17th year as the official word pronouncer. A Classics professor from the University of Vermont, Bailly won the 1980 competition. Aside the cash prize, winners will get a complete reference library from Merriam-Webster.

This year’s Bee takes place over four days from May 27-30. Preliminaries and Round 2 take place on May 27 and the morning of the May 28 before moving onto Round 3 that afternoon. Round 3 continues May 29 before the Finals on Thursday, May 30. The prelims and Rounds 2 and 3 consist of a multiple-choice scantron test as well as oral spelling rounds where the 592 spellers earn points for correct answers. The 50 highest scores move on to the finals.

ESPN and its family of networks will provide coverage of the Bee for the 26th consecutive year. Only the finals will be carried on its flagship channel.

Two hundred seventy of those spellers won a regional spelling bee and 292 qualified through RSVBee, the invitational program in its second year that allows students to compete at the national competition if they didn’t win a regional bee but have won either their school’s bee or have previously been a national finalist.

The top speller will get $50,000 cash and the National Spelling Bee engraved trophy from Scripps; $2,500 cash and reference library from Merriam-Webster; $400 of reference works, including a 1768 Encyclopaedia Britannica Replica Set and a three-year membership to Britannica Online Premium; and trips to New York and Hollywood for appearances on “Live with Kelly and Ryan” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

2nd place: $25,000, 3rd place: $15,000, 4th place: $10,000, 5th place: $5,000, 6th place: $2,500

The National Spelling Bee first started in 1925 when nine newspapers joined together to host a spelling bee.

Author: Michael Eli Dokosi

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