History
The National Spelling Bee was formed in 1925 as a consolidation of numerous local spelling bees, organized by The Courier-Journal in Louisville. Frank Neuhauser won the first National Spelling Bee held that year, by successfully spelling "gladiolus". Later, the E.W. Scripps Company acquired the rights to the program. The bee is held in late May and/or early June of each year. It is open to students who have not yet completed the eighth grade, reached their 15th birthday, nor won a previous National Spelling Bee. Its goal is educational: not only to encourage children to perfect the art of spelling, but also to help enlarge their vocabularies and widen their knowledge of the English language.
An insect bee is featured prominently on the logo of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, despite the word "bee" being completely unrelated to the name of the insect. The origin of the word "bee" as used in "spelling bee" is unclear. "Bee" refers to "a gathering", where people join together in an activity, and the origin of this sense of "bee" is related to the word "been".
The Bee is the nation's largest and longest-running educational promotion, administered on a not-for-profit basis by The E.W. Scripps Company and 288 sponsors in the United States, Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Guam, Jamaica, Ghana, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa.
Sponsorship is available on a limited basis to daily and weekly newspapers serving English-speaking populations around the world. Each sponsor organizes a spelling bee program in its community with the cooperation of area school officials: public, private, parochial, charter, virtual, and home schools.
Schools enroll with the national office to ensure their students are eligible to participate and to receive the materials needed to conduct classroom and school bees. During enrollment, school bee coordinators receive their local sponsor's program-specific information—local dates, deadlines, and participation guidelines.
The official study booklet is available free online.
The champion of each sponsor's final spelling bee advance to the Scripps National Spelling Bee competition in Washington, D.C.
Read more about this topic: Scripps National Spelling Bee
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