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Last Updated: Jun 1, 2017 - 1:38:18 PM |
LEFT: Jee'von Pratt competing in Round 3;
TOP RIGHT, from Left to right: Oswald T. Brown, Jee’von Pratt, and Patrinella Rolle; and BOTTOM RIGHT: Six-year-old Edith Fuller, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Round 3.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Although he was eliminated in the third
round, The Bahamas has every reason to be proud of the performance of Jee’von
Arden Pratt, The Bahamas National Spelling Bee champion, in the 90th Scripps
National Spelling Bee that culminates with a live broadcast on ESPN when 40
finalists compete for the 2017 championship.
I had an absolutely marvelous time covering the Bee
on Wednesday while my
husband, Oswald Brown, the Press, Cultural Affairs and Information Manager at
The Bahamas Embassy, was providing coverage of the visit to Washington, D.C. by
Foreign Affairs Minister Darren Henfield.
The first round was a written test, the scores of which are added to the subsequent
oral rounds. Jee'von appeared very confident in the second round, for which the
contestants are given a list of some 400 words to study. Although he seemed a
little nervous when we met him the day before the Bee, there was no sign of
nervousness when he approached the microphone for the first time. He correctly
spelled his word, S-P-O-D-U-M-E-M-E, and I was relieved to breathe again, as I
was holding my breath while taking the photos! Round 3 proved to be a tough
round, as the words are taken randomly from the Merrian Webster Dictionary. My
heart was pounding as Jee'von took the stage, and it was a very emotional
moment when I realized he had been eliminated.
In many instances the children were hearing their word in the 3rd round for the
very first time. They are allowed to ask Dr. Jacques Bailly to give alternative
pronunciations, word roots, and meanings. Dr. Bailly is the 1980 spelling bee
champion, now an associate professor of classics at the University of Vermont.
He has been serving the Spelling Bee as pronouncer for the past 15 years, and
was associate pronouncer for 12 years prior to that. I am sure his gentle
manner and sense of humour put the contestants very much at ease. After several
attempts at listening to Dr Bailly pronounce her word, I literally almost
laughed out loud when one contestant asked him to sing it, to the amusement of
the audience, and Dr. Bailly!
It must be pretty nerve wracking to have to sit through nearly 200 other
contestants attempting to spell their words, waiting for your turn. However,
Jee'von was very calm as he went up to the microphone. He was given the word
S-A-G-A-C-I-O-U-S, and misspelt it, getting only one vowel wrong.
As I have noted, we should all be very proud of Jee'von. He worked extremely
hard to get to the third round, and I hope his effort will encourage more young
students to want to read, spell, and compete in the future. And I hope Jee'von
will want to give it another shot! The trip to Washington DC is well worth it!
Competitors are usually in the 10 to 14 year old age range, but this year there
was a young six-year-old spelling phenom from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Edith Fuller,
who is home schooled, made it through to the 4th Round. It was wonderful to see
how the older children high fived her after she correctly spelled the word
T-A-P-A-S in the Third Round. After her written score was combined with her
scores from rounds 2 and 3, however, she was eliminated, but tied for 41st
place in the national rankings, which is a tremendous achievement for one so young.
It has been a real privilege to attend the Scripps National Spelling Bee for
the second time, even more so because I am so very proud of my husband, Oswald
Brown, who in 1998 introduced the Scripps Spelling Bee to The Bahamas when he
was Editor of the Nassau Guardian. It was also very good to see Ms. Patrinella
Rolle again, whom my husband told me has been with the Bahamas National
Spelling Bee from the beginning and was its first National Coach. She is one of
the chief organizers of the Bee in The Bahamas, representing the Ministry of
Education, which along with the Nassau Guardian are the principal sponsors.
© Copyright 2017 by thebahamasweekly.com
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