SCRIPPS NATIONAL SPELLING BEE

 The Scripps National Spelling Bee (formerly the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee and commonly called the National Spelling Bee) is a highly competitive annual spelling bee in the United States, with participants from other countries as well. It was formed in 1925 and these days it is held the week following Memorial Day weekend, in the ballroom at the Grand Hyatt Washington hotel in Washington, D.C. 

To be eligible to win this competition you will undergo a year-long training (or more). They will start from local competition like around school, county, city, and then they will go to state and finally national. And seriously the spelling bee words are really hard. It always amazes me to see 12 years old kids knowing so many hard words. This year youngest national qualifier is Vanya Shivashankar from Kansas. She is 8 years old and she happens to be the sister of 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion Kavya Shivashankar. Foreign students this year come from Bahama, China, Germany (selected from all-Europe military school and ps: she looks like Indonesian -look-), Ghana, Guam, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand and Puerto Rico

(TEST YOUR SKILL HERE)


Some of the winning words


YEAR      WORD                    WINNER                     SPONSOR

2000	demarche	George Abraham Thampy	St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis, Missouri
2001	succedaneum	Sean Conley	Aitkin Independent Age, Aitkin, Minnesota
2002	prospicience	Pratyush Buddiga	Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colorado
2003	pococurante	Sai R. Gunturi	The Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas
2004	autochthonous	David Scott Pilarski Tidmarsh	South Bend Tribune, South Bend, Indiana
2005	appoggiatura	Anurag Kashyap	San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego, California
2006	Ursprache	Kerry Close	Asbury Park Press/Home News Tribune, Asbury Park, New Jersey
2007	serrefine	Evan M. O'Dorney	Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, California
2008	guerdon	Sameer Mishra	Journal and Courier, Lafayette, Indiana
2009	Laodicean	Kavya Shivashankar	Olathe News, Olathe, KansasAND MORE