53 More Days! - It is Almost Time!/Memories

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is almost here! There are 53 more days until most spellers arrive in Washington, D.C. (May 27). There are so many spellers returning this year, including several five-peats and four-peats.

This year also includes six-year-old Lori Madison, the youngest speller to ever make it to the Scripps National Spelling Bee. There is a possibility that she may be the first seven-peat at the Bee if she does not win before that. 

The spellers from Utah this year:

Speller          Sponsor
Jared Ward  (Southeast Education Service Center, Price, Utah)   Two-peat
Sophie Choate (Daily Herald, Provo, Utah)
Vismaya Kharkar (The Valley Journals, Salt Lake City)   Two-peat

Jared Ward
http://www.etv10news.com/component/k2/item/1921-7th-grader-repeats-as-regional-spelling-bee-champion

Sophie Choate
http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/spelling-bee-winner-takes-prize-with-mordacious/article_e680f670-5bda-5bc2-9467-aa9e321a6037.html

There is no article for Vismaya Kharkar yet, but I learned it from a friend.

Vismaya is from my area, and she did amazing at nationals last year, even if she did not advance to the semifinals. The Salt Lake Valley Spelling Bee winning word from last year was: infarction. Her Rounds 2 and 3 words were maillot and affianced. She first competed as a fourth grader in 2009 placing ninth, next was 2010 when she placed sixth, but she pushed hard in 2011 to make it to nationals for her first time. She's now returning to the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Is there a possibility that she may win in this year or next year? Utah has never had a champion at the National Spelling Bee. Go Vismaya!

I'm pretty sure at least one speller from Utah, if not all three, will make it to semifinals. Utah has not had a two-peat at nationals since 2006-2007 (Kunal Sah), but there are 2 two-peats this year! Go Utah!

Last year, only one of the four spellers from Utah made it to Semifinals: Anna-Marie Sprenger. When I read the article about her win, I was impressed that she had hardly studied, but she had a background knowledge of many languages. She misspelled privatim as privatum. Privatum is an actual word in Latin, but it is not in Webster's Third. It just has a similar meaning and pronunciation as privatim. You may have heard the term ius privatum, which means "private law". Anna-Marie seemed so confident with her spelling, but Utah is still proud of her.

My sister first competed as a fourth grader in a homeschool bee with the K12 program, and she placed fourth her first year. The speller who won her Bee really impressed me, even if he was out in the first round last year. His mother told me that he knew every word on that list, but struggled with the word he misspelled (I believe it was semantics). In 2012, I don't remember what she placed, because there were hundreds of students in her school bee. At least she has three years left.

My Spelling Bee Career is a very long story that it is hard to put everything into detail, especially my final year. To read about important parts of my career in the bee, please go under Pages and click on Spelling Bee Career. My spelling bee goal now is to help other spellers reach their goals through this blog and a spelling bee club I have been working on. Right now, I only have spellers that I see and talk to often, but in the future, other spellers from the Salt Lake Valley and around are welcome to attend. If you are not from the area, I will be posting videos on this blog of the sessions, or I will make a website and post them there.

Good luck to all the spellers, and I will be watching!