BY OSWALD T BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., March 23, 2023 –The lead article in the print edition of The Washington Informer, which was widely distributed in the Washington Metropolitan area today, is about the winner of the 2023 Prince George’s County Spelling Bee held on Friday, March 17.
“With a crowd of more than 300 family members, teachers and special supporters, 25 students competed for the title of winner at the 2023 Prince George’s County Spelling Bee presented by The Washington Informer and Washington Informer Charities, hosted at the University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on March 17,” The Informe stated in its lead paragraph.
Eighth grader Lesly Hernandez Martin walked away as the champion and will be granted automatic entrance to the Scripps National Spelling Bee competition, which “will be held at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Fort Washington, Maryland, a mere 30-minute commute from The Clarice,” The Informer notes.
All across the United States, similar local competitions have already been held to select regional spelling champions to represent their districts in in this iconic educational competition, whose rich history dates back to 1925 when nine newspapers joined together to host a spelling bee.
“Little did they know that more than 90 years later their literacy effort would reach 11 million students each year,” according to a history of The Scripps Bee on the Internet.
I am so proud to have been the person responsible for introducing the Scripps Spelling Bee to The Bahamas, and The Washington Informer is the main reason why I was able to make this major contribution to the educational system in The Bahamas.
I previously lived in Washington, D.C., for 21 years before returning to The Bahamas “permanently” in 1996, and for more than 12 years, I was News Editor of The Washington Informer, an award-winning African American-owned newspaper that took over the sponsorship of the D.C. City-Wide Spelling Bee in 1982. I attended my first Scripps Bee in 1983 and was so impressed by its potential to have a tremendous impact on the educational system of The Bahamas that I promised myself back then that whenever I returned to The Bahamas, I would make a concerted effort to convince those responsible for the administration of education in the country to support my idea to annually select a spelling champion to participate in the Scripps Bee.
Back then, newspapers were the primary sponsors of competitions through which Scripps National Spelling Bee contestants were determined, and when I became Editor of the Nassau Guardian in 1997, I discussed my idea with the late Kenneth “Six” Francis, the then Publisher and General Manager of The Guardian, and he threw his full support behind my initiative.
Although I often tend to take sole responsibility for introducing the Scripps National Spelling Bee to The Bahamas, Dion Foulkes, who at the time was Minister of State for Education, played an equally important role in assuring that my efforts were successful.
As everyone in The Bahamas should know by now, whatever skills I possess in my chosen profession of journalism were nurtured and developed by Dion’s father, Sir Arthur Foulkes, who was News Editor at The Tribune when I joined that newspaper’s editorial staff as a trainee reporter in May of 1960. I later joined Sir Arthur at The Bahamian Times in 1965 after it was established several years earlier by the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) to promote its political message among the Bahamian electorate. So, I have known Dion since he was a little boy who distributed copies of Bahamian Times and consider him to be a “brother.”
My “brother” Dion did not have to do much to convince the then Minister of Education Ivy Dumont, who later became Governor General of The Bahamas, to fully support the first Bahamas National Spelling Bee, given her life-long commitment to the educational development of young Bahamians. A good friend of mine, Agatha Dean Delancy, and Tonya Adderley, who were both then employed by IBM Bahamas, helped to convince IBM’s then General Manager Felix Stubbs to become a principal sponsor along with The Guardian of the first Bahamas National Spelling Bee in 1998.
The winner was Dominique Higgins, a 12-year-old Jordan Prince William High student, and he performed exceptionally well in the Scripps competition, but did not advance to the finals. Incidentally, 1998 was the year 12-year-old Jody-Anne Maxwell, Jamaica’s spelling champion, made history as the first non-American to win Scripps National Spelling Bee.
During the early years after the Scripps Bee was introduced in The Bahamas, I suggested that the Ministry of Education establish Spelling Bee Clubs in schools in the country and schedule competitions among schools throughout the year in the same manner that sports competitions are held. Although no one ever followed up on my idea, I still think that the current group of progressive young administrators in leadership positions at the Ministry of Education and Technical and Vocational Training – like Zane Lightbourn and Ricardo P. Deveaux – should use their influence with Minister Glenys Hanna-Martin to see to it that Spelling Clubs become a reality in our public schools.
However, it would seem as if national interest in The Bahamas participating in the Scripps National Spelling Bee has waned considerably in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, or at least that’s the conclusion I reached in trying to figure out why for the first time since the Scripps Bee was introduced to The Bahamas, the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas decided to discontinue televising this most important educational event live.
Given the fact that the winner this year was Wes Underwood, a 13-year-old Spanish Wells, Eleuthera, student, this inexplicable decision denied residents of the Eleuthera District — and indeed residents of other Family Islands that had contestants in the BNSB finals — the opportunity to see the competition live.
As I noted in a previous article, I most certainly think the management of ZNS owes the Bahamian people an official explanation for this questionable decision.
Meanwhile, I looking forward to welcoming our champion speller Wes Underwood and the other members of the Bahamian delegation when they arrive in D.C. for Bee Week 2023 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, from May 28 to June 1.
