By: Oliver Skeen

The spelling bee is a fun and competitive “quiz” that schools do. A spelling bee is when a person is given a word, and they have to spell it. They keep advancing until they spell the word wrong. We interviewed Ruby Bennett, who received 4th place in the Maricopa regional spelling bee, and when asked how she enjoyed the experience she said, “It was cool, but also very frightening. All the other kids who were competing had won their school and their district spelling bee, but since Tempe Prep is the only school in its district, I hadn’t competed in district, so I was worried they’d be significantly better than me.” This TPA school is special because of this. We are our own district, and all the other kids had to compete against many other kids, while she just had to compete with all the kids within our school. 

These spelling bees also seem to be very rule-specific, but at the same time all great fun. Ruby said, “It was actually quite fun to participate. Even though the regional Spelling Bee determines who goes to state, everyone was very friendly with each other. They were very specific with rules, but it wasn’t a super competitive environment.” She talked about how she wanted to “make it count” since it was her last year competing in the spelling bee. 

Lastly, there are lots of ways to study for the spelling bee contests. Ruby said, “I studied for a couple of weeks in advance, but I wasn’t very consistent about it. The prepared list they give you is about twenty pages long and, although it is helpful to study a bit as sometimes you are given a word you went over, usually the words they give you aren’t exactly what was in the study guide.” This is saying that you should put some time into spelling, but also some of the words are not on the list. 

Overall, the spelling bee is a fun competition that many kids participate in.