Kids vie to get last word at weekend's state spelling bee

There are people who struggle to remember the difference between "there" and "their."

Then there are people who know a compliment from a complement and lean from lien and can spell "balalaika" without a thought. And many of those people aren't even old enough to drive.

Children's spelling bees are serious business and Saturday at Central Baptist College in Conway, 75 of the best young spellers in Arkansas will rattle off sesquipedalian terms in front of judges, competitors, parents and, for the first time, an internet audience.

The Arkansas State Spelling Bee is the next-to-last step for eager wordsmiths on the road to the big Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington. The national bee is sponsored by The E.W. Scripps Co. and the state bee is presented by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. So far, a̶n̶ ̶A̶r̶k̶a̶n̶s̶a̶s̶ ̶s̶t̶u̶d̶e̶n̶t̶ a student who won an Arkansas bee* hasn't won the national prize.

It all starts at the classroom level before winners advance to schoolwide and then county contests. Then each of Arkansas' 75 counties sends its top speller to Conway for the big showdown.

There have been movies (Akeelah and the Bee, Bad Words) and even stage musicals (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) done about the spelling bee experience -- often a parody with overly invested parents and intense children in an alphabet-strewn battleground.

"The kids take it very seriously," says Amanda Copley, Democrat-Gazette marketing and events director. "Sometimes, we're seeing them study right up until the minute they are about to go on stage. It's as intense as when you have high school kids at a baseball tournament.

"It's like a sporting event."

The list of rules is six pages. Among the requirements: "The speller must not have repeated any grade for the purpose of extending spelling bee eligibility," and "The speller must not have completed or have been enrolled in more than six high school-level courses or two college-level courses on or before April 30, 2017."

There is a lot of work that goes in to it. Scripps provides study materials and lists and links to pages like Merriam-Webster's Spell It! site (myspellit.com), featuring lists of words broken down into language families, and study and challenge words. Some may be fairly common ("orchard," "alligator"). But how often does the average person use the word "flense" (which means "to strip of blubber or skin")?

"They'll memorize [the list]" says event coordinator Taylor Reynolds. "It's super-serious."

Last year's state competition saw young spellers sink or soar on words like "purloin," "agrarianism" and "lidocaine."

The winning word: "brigadier" (a military rank). The national bee winning word was "gesellschaft" (community held together by impersonal ties).

To be eligible, a student must be in first through eighth grades and their school must be enrolled with the Scripps program. Home-schoolers are also eligible if they register. So, parents whose children may be interested in competing next year should contact their school about enrollment.

Copley and Reynolds also encourage parents to bring their children to the state bee -- or stream it online, "so they can get familiar with the process," Copley says.

It may seem like younger kids would be at a disadvantage, but that's not necessarily so. Last year's state winner, Pavani Chittemsetty, was a fourth-grader. She was eliminated in the national bee after three rounds.

Generally, the audience is made up of students' family members, who stay very attentive in case they need to file a grievance or challenge a decision, but the bee is open to all. And this year, it will be even easier for people to see it via live-stream on Facebook (facebook.com/ArkansasStateSpellingBee).

"There's people all over the state who want to watch these kids who can't necessarily make it to Conway," Copley says. "We really enjoy hosting this even for the state.

"The kids are so excited and into it and you can see the joy on their face when they nail that word and walk back to their seat."

Weekend on 03/02/2017

*CORRECTION: Justin Carroll of Wynne won the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 1995; he competed in the Memphis Mid-South Spelling Bee. A previous version of this story failed to mention that.