Nineteen public school students and six private school students will vie to become the champion of the 30th annual Anne Arundel County Spelling Bee on February 24, 2018. The event begins at 10 a.m. in the Board Room of the Parham Building, located at 2644 Riva Road in Annapolis.
The county bee is a partnership of Anne Arundel County Public Schools and the 21st Century Education Foundation. This year’s presenting sponsor is Development Facilitators, Inc. The event sponsors are Buffalo Wild Wings, M&T Bank, NTA Life Insurance, and JMT Engineering. The champion sponsors for this year are Educational Systems Federal Credit Union and Daly Computers.
The champion of the county bee wins an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to compete in the 2018 Scripps National Spelling Bee in May. There will be other prizes for the county’s top spellers, including monetary awards from the 21st Century Education Foundation as well as reference books and gift items from Merriam-Webster, Bowie Baysox, Touchstones Discussion Project, Southwest Airlines, Oak Contracting, Glen Burnie Regional Library, the AACPS STEM Office, and HALO.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee is a not-for-profit educational promotion sponsored by The E.W. Scripps Company in conjunction with businesses and community organizations around the world. Each sponsor organizes a spelling bee program in its community with the cooperation of area school officials: private, charter, parochial, public, and home schools.
Participants in this year’s bee, listed in order of the school they represent, are:
- Isabella Chase, Grade 8, Annapolis Middle School
- Abigail Chalfont, Grade 8, Arundel Middle School
- Sophia Jean, Grade 8, Brooklyn Park Middle School
- Dylan Borga, Grade 7, Central Middle School
- Nathan Thomas, Grade 7, Chesapeake Bay Middle School
- Prince Osei, Grade 8, Corkran Middle School
- Isak West, Grade 7, Crofton Middle School
- Riley Rockwell, Grade 6, George Fox Middle School
- Eli Fortier, Grade 8, Indian Creek School
- Bria Knee, Grade 7, Lindale Middle School
- Haja Bundu, Grade 8, MacArthur Middle School
- Neal O’Shea, Grade 7, Magothy River Middle School
- Krystyn Naegele, Grade 8, Marley Middle School
- Evan Putterman, Grade 6, Meade Middle School
- Reagan Jaikeran, Grade 8, Monsignor Slade Catholic School
- Oluwashefe Oyemade, Grade 8, Old Mill Middle School North
- Albert Russell, Grade 8, Old Mill Middle School South
- Joseph Robuck, Grade 7, School of the Incarnation
- Catcher Salazar, Grade 8, Severn River Middle School
- Trey Dring, Grade 7, Severn School
- Benjamin Tolley, Grade 8, Severna Park Middle School
- Natalie Voorhees, Grade 7, Southern Middle School
- Julian Aguayo, Grade 6, St. Andrew’s United Methodist Day School
- Elizabeth Kane, Grade 7, St. John the Evangelist
- Isabel Messina, Grade 7, Wiley H. Bates Middle School
