Spellers to bee all abuzz in Lynn

LYNN – Forty-one top spellers from throughout the schools in Eastern Mass. will compete at The Daily Item’s annual regional spelling bee next Thursday, April 2, beginning at 6:15 p.m., at Lynn City Hall Auditorium.Finalists will vie for a chance to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., in May.Now in its 30th year, the bee is sponsored by Mary and Joel Abramson, owners of Flagship Travel in Marblehead, who will send the winner with a family chaperone to Washington with all expenses paid.The field has narrowed this year to 41 school winners. They range from second- to eighth-graders and represent schools in Lynn, Swampscott, Marblehead, Nahant, Lynnfield, Revere, Saugus, Peabody, as well as other communities in eastern Massachusetts.Awards go to the last three spellers standing. The speller in first place wins the trip to Washington, which also includes Bee Week accommodations at the Gaylord Resort and Convention Center, and spending money for the contestant and his or her family chaperone.Additional first-place prizes are: Merriam Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, a one-year subscription to Britannica Online Premium, a $100 Barnes & Noble gift certificate, and the Samuel Louis Sugarman Award – a 2015 United States Mint Proof Set.The spellers in second place will receive a $50 Barnes & Noble gift certificate and third place will receive a $25 Barnes & Noble gift certificate.Lawrence Lowe, a retired theater teacher from Lynn English High School, will again be the pronouncer for the event.Judges are: Daniel Cahill, Lynn City Council president; Brendan Crighton, state representative from the 11th Essex District and Lynn councilor-at-large; and Sewell-Anderson fifth-grade teacher Theresa Curtis.