By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 31, 2019 – Although they were disappointed that they did not advance to the finals, the three Bahamian spellers who participated in the 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee are to be congratulated for having represented The Bahamas exceptionally well in the prestigious annual spelling competition.
Roy Seligman, Kevin Williams and Arjun Shetty spelt both of their onstage words correctly in Round 2 and Round 3 of the competition, but they did not accumulate sufficient points in the preliminary tests to be among the 50 finalists who participated in Thursday morning’s session of the finals at the Gaylord Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., where the competition was held over four days.
This clearly is one of the areas that officials of the Bahamas National Spelling Bee have to place greater emphasis on as we prepare our spellers to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in the future. Spelling both onstage words correctly only account for a total of six points out of the 36-point system that’s used to determine which spellers advance to the finals, which usually includes about 50 spellers.
The remainder of the 36 points are “earned” by the spellers through their participation in preliminary tests, which include a written spelling test and the spellers knowledge of the meaning of the words given in the written test. Obviously, for 10-and-11-year-old students to know the meaning of some of the words they are asked to spell, it certainly helps if they know the etymology (origin) of the words and every other facet related to those words became part of the English language. This is ostensibly why the spellers ask the pronouncer a series of questions before they begin to spell a word.
Because of strong and disciplined study habits, some of the spellers who participate in the written tests score 100 percent and many others 90 percent and higher, which makes it almost impossible for those spellers who may not know the meaning of two or three words to advance to the finals.
This is not meant to be a “race-issue” observation, but the spellers who invariably do extremely well in the written test overwhelmingly are of a particular ethnicity, which is also reflected among the eight co-champions of this year’s Scripps Spelling Bee, and this fact suggests that they are members of families that exercise strict discipline with their children.
Be that as it may, Bahamians who watched the finals of the Scripps Bee on ESPN Thursday night surely would agree that the road to the finals for our three Bahamian spellers was exceptionally difficult if they did not score very high in the written tests.
As Scripps National Spelling Bee noted in a press release Friday morning, “In an unprecedented display of academic achievement, eight spellers have become co-champions of the 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee, making history as the first group to share the coveted title in the 92 years of the storied event. The eight spellers competed during a suspenseful 20 rounds of head-to-head competition Thursday evening.”
Paige Kimble, Executive Director of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, was quoted as saying, “This is a night to celebrate the remarkable academic achievement of a group of the world’s most talented spellers. These spellers have conquered the dictionary unequivocally with their ability, skill and command of the English language. It’s an incredible achievement, and we salute all the years of hard work and dedicated study that brought these intelligent young people to the world stage. We congratulate them all.”
By the same token, Bahamians have every reason to “celebrate the remarkable academic achievement” of Roy Seligman, Kevin Williams and Arjun Shetty, who were among a “group of the world’s most talented spellers” who participated in 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee.
His Excellency Sidney Collie, Bahamas Ambassador to the United States and Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States (OAS), and Mr. Theo Neilly, Bahamas Consul General to Washington, D.C., are to be congratulated for their outreach efforts to assist the spellers and the group that accompanied them to D.C.
On Thursday, the group visited the Bahamas Embassy Consular Annex, 1025 Vermont Avenue, N.W., when they were officially greeted by the Ambassador and Consul General and were treated to a “light lunch.”
Consul General Neilly happened to be aware of my involvement as one of the persons responsible for introducing the Scripps Bee to The Bahamas when I was Editor of the Nassau Guardian in 1998 and he graciously extended an invitation to me and my wife Elisabeth Ann Brown, who is the photographer for BAHAMAS CHRONICLE, to accompany him when he attended the Tuesday afternoon session of the Scripps Bee.
The competition began Monday, May 27, with 562 spellers, up from 515 in 2018, as a result of a new RSVBee initiative introduced by Scripps Bee in 2017, making it possible for jurisdictions to enter more than one contestant; hence the reason why The Bahamas had three spellers in the Scripps Bee this year.
Seligman was The Bahamas’s champion, having won the Bahamas National Spelling Bee championship on March 10, and Williams and Shetty – who finished second and third, respectively – were accepted in the competition through the RSVBee process.
Each year, the Scripps National Spelling Bee reaches more than 11 million students participating in spelling bees held in classrooms, schools and locally sponsored events around the United States and other parts of the world, including The Bahamas, Jamaica, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, the People’s Republic of China, India, Ghana, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand.
This year, Jamaica had four spellers in the competition, including its national champion Darian Douglas, who was sponsored by the Jamaica Gleaner. Douglas made it to the finals and actually was among the spellers featured in ESPN’s prime time broadcast Thursday night, but he was eliminated with 26 spellers remaining.
The three other Jamaican spellers, who were accepted through the RSVBee process — Rhonoya Anderson, Honey Advani and Ashleigh Jarrett — were eliminated after round three.
