WASHINGTON, D.C., May 25, 2019 — It’s that time of year again when 12- and 13-year-olds make you question how hard you really worked in grade school or if Dr. Jacques Bailly is making up new words on the fly for contestants to try and spell.
The 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee returns for its 92nd edition this week with 565 spellers from all 50 states and seven countries converging on National Harbor, Maryland for the three-day event. At the 2018 Bee, 14-year-old Karthik Nemmani from McKinney, Texas, correctly spelled “koinonia” to win the contest. Koinonia is defined as “the Christian fellowship or body of believers.”
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. Spellers will compete to win a $50,000 cash prize along with a complete reference library from Merriam-Webster.
When is the 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee?
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.
The Bahamas has entered three participants in the 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee. In addition to Bahamas National Spelling Bee (BNSB) Champion Roy Seligman, a 10-year-old fourth-grade student at Lyford Cay International School, The Bahamas also being represented by 11-year-old Kevin Williams, a fifth-grade student at Yellow Elder Primary, and Arjun Shetty, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Queen’s College, who finished second and third, respectively, in the BNS championship finals held on Sunday, March 10, at Atlantis on Paradise Island.
Williams and Shetty qualified as contestants in the Scripps Bee through the RSVBee process, a new invitational program introduced last year by Scripps to allow jurisdictions to enter more than one champion speller.
All spellers are expected to have arrived I D.C. by Sunday, May 26, and the first order of business will be to officially register.
SCRIPPS NATIONAL SPELLING BEE TV SCHEDULES
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.
Date Time Network
Tuesday, May 28 9:45 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. ESPN3 and ESPN App
Wednesday, May 29 8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. ESPN3 and ESPN App
Thursday, May 30 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN App
— 8:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. ESPN, ESPNU, ESPN App
Where is the 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee?
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.
