By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., March 14, 2024 — Scripps National Spelling Bee (SNSB) will welcome more than 230 spellers to National Harbor, Maryland, at the end of May for the 96th SNSB competition since it was founded in 1925. Bee Week 2024 will take place at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, right outside of Washington, D.C., from Sunday, May 26, to Friday, May 31.
The National Competition will begin with the Preliminaries on Tuesday, May 28, and conclude with the Finals on Thursday, May 30. Many of the participants have already been decided through local and regional bees that have already been held, but some regional competitions are still being held across the United States.
Meanwhile, based on information gleaned from the Facebook page of the Bahamas National Spelling Bee (BNSB), what promises to be a highly competitive and exciting BNSB finals will be held this Sunday, March 17, at Breezes Resort on West Bay Steet in Nassau, Bahamas. The first and second-place finishers will both represent The Bahamas at the Scripps Bee in D.C.
Ms. Cylestine Williams, principal organizer of the BNSB for the Bahamas Ministry of Education, Technical and Vocational Training, did not respond to an email seeking information on the BNSB finals, but on the BNSB’s Facebook page, 21 individual MEET THE SPELLER advertisements were posted with the spellers photographs, names, schools and the districts they are representing,
I have an endearing personal interest in the BNSB because I introduced the Scripps National Spelling Bee into the educational system of The Bahamas in 1998 when I was Editor of The Nassau Guardian. At the time, newspapers were predominantly the sponsors of Scripps Spelling Bee contestants.
To be sure, I was certainly hoping that Clint Watson, General Manager of the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas (BCB), would have reversed the terrible decision reached by the BCB last year to stop televising the BNSB finals live on ZNS-TV, but apparently he has not.
Living here in Washington, D.C., I used to look forward to watching the BNSB on TV with the same enthusiasm as watching my beloved Washington Nationals play baseball and my beloved Washington Redskins play football.
What’s more, I am sure that the televised BNSB finals had a huge following among residents of our Family Islands, especially those islands with a contestant in the BNSB finals. There certainly should not have been a problem finding sponsorship to broadcast such an important educational program live, especially so at a time when far too many young Bahamians are inclined to take a “wrong turn” at the crossroads in their young lives and are embarking on a life of crime.
Contestants in Scripps Bee last year were from every US state as well as from The Bahamas, Canada, Germany, Ghana, the US Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico.
The Bahamas was well represented by Wes Underwood, a 13-year-old Grade 8 student at Samuel Guy Pinder All-Age School in Spanish Wells, who was eliminated in Round Three of the Preliminaries
Dating back to shortly after I introduced the Scripps Bee to The Bahamas, I strongly advocated for the establishment of Spelling Bee Clubs in schools in the country, and I still think this is a good idea for the Hon. Glenys Hanna-Martin, Minister of Education, Technical and Vocational Training, to implement in our schools’ curricula or as an after-school activity.
