Spelling bee featuring Alexandria student begins

Preliminaries: Round Two, 8 to 11:45 a.m., live on ESPN3.

The Scripps Spelling Bee finals will air on ESPN at 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday and I bet there are going to be A-W-E-S-O-M-E.

If Veronica makes it to the finals, she would compete for the first place title next Thursday, May 26th.

The National Spelling Bee begins on Tuesday when all 285 contestants take a preliminary vocabulary contest.

She often uses her free time to study words.

The Oscar-nominated documentary follows eight young competitors during the 1999 Scripps National Spelling Bee. The contestants and their families are treated to sightseeing excursions in Washington, D.C. And, from the local contest to the national stage, the children’s accomplishments are celebrated – whether they leave with a medal or not.

Veronica’s dad, Joseph Goveas, said he and his wife Mary are always nervous when Veronica competes, but they do their best to calm her down. But there are definitely some butterflies, too.

“When he went to Scripps, I didn’t even know what it was, or what it was like”, she said. “At some point you’re going to have to guess”, she said. Overall, there have been 15 Indian American victors since Balu Natarajan became the first speller from the community to win the competition in 1985 at the age of 13.

The 89th Annual Scripps National Spelling Bee is scheduled to be held.

She anxious about competing with the kids who drill on spelling for hours every night, absorbing the dictionary like it was “Harry Potter”. That kind of commitment has been hard to manage in addition to all the other activities on her schedule. He says Veronica’s love of reading and her school got her this far. “I have been watching the Bee for years and there are a lot of cameras flashing and you are in front of a huge audience”. “The competition is an arduous process”. They have 21/2 minutes to ask only about the definition, part of speech, language of origin, alternate pronunciation and the etymological root of the word. Her parents bought them for her.

Some spellers pantomime writing the words on their arms or hands to try to help them.

“We at Beekmantown Middle School are so proud of Grant on his accomplishments in the Spelling Bee”, Beekmantown Middle School Principal Amy Campbell told the Press-Republican. Had Odessa hosted a Scripps-sponsored contest that Gabriel had won, he would have the younger boy’s number. However, above all McCollom expects to meet new people and make many new friends from around the world. “Having that experience is what I’m most excited about”.