Nineteen public school students, 10 private school students, and two home-schooled students will vie to become the champion of the 29th annual Anne Arundel County Spelling Bee on February 25, 2017. The event begins at 10 a.m. in the Board Room of the Carol S. 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 event sponsor is M&T Bank. The champion sponsor for this year is Educational Systems Federal Credit Union and the bee’s media partner is Capital Gazette Communications.
The champion of the county bee wins an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to compete in the 2017 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, Medieval Times, Daly Computers, Barnes and Noblel, 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:
- Joel Cowart, Grade 8, Annapolis Area Christian School
- Zoe Clark, Grade 7, Annapolis Middle School
- Thomas Greenslit, Grade 8, Arundel Middle School
- Zoey Fowlkes, Grade 7, Brooklyn Park Middle School
- Ian Abusamra, Grade 7, Central Middle School
- Nathan Thomas, Grade 6, Chesapeake Bay Middle School
- Yazan Tartir, Grade 6, Corkran Middle School
- Hayun Park, Grade 7, Crofton Middle School
- Julianna Gepilano, Grade 6, George Fox Middle School
- Storrie Kulynych-Irvin, Grade 8, Homeschool
- Sarah Roberts, Grade 7, Homeschool
- Kamrynn Hobbs, Grade 6, Indian Creek School
- Claude Campbell, Grade 7, Key School
- Ayomide Adelaja, Grade 7, Lindale Middle School
- Amara Allen, Grade 6, MacArthur Middle School
- Fiona Daly, Grade 7, Magothy River Middle School
- Mason Jones, Grade 7, Marley Middle School
- Maija Bradshaw, Grade 8, Meade Middle School
- Reagan Jaikeran, Grade 7, Monsignor Slade Catholic School
- Capria Pyles, Grade 8, Old Mill Middle School North
- Aaron Triplett, Grade 7, Old Mill Middle School South
- Julianna Bibbo, Grade 8, School of the Incarnation
- Catcher Salazar, Grade 7, Severn River Middle School
- Sam Hill, Grade 8, Severn School
- Kate Grattan, Grade 6, Severna Park Middle School
- Blake Reynolds, Grade 6, Southern Middle School
- Ethan Stubbs, Grade 7, St. Andrew’s United Methodist Day School
- Sally Greene, Grade 6, St. Anne’s School of Annapolis
- Cameron White, Grade 7, St. John the Evangelist
- Catherine Rogers, Grade 6, St. Mary’s Elementary School
- Isabel Messina, Grade 7, Wiley H. Bates Middle School