LYNN — Local Spelling Bee school champions will battle at the 36th Annual Daily Item Regional Spelling Bee on Tuesday for a chance to compete at the national level in Washington, D.C., in May.
After the 2020 hiatus and last year’s online-only competition, the Item’s annual spelling bee will return to the Lynn Auditorium in person on Tuesday, March 15, at 5 p.m. The main co-sponsors of the event, which is open to the public, are The Daily Item and Joel and Mary Abramson.
Thirty-one school champions from such communities as Lynn, Danvers, Swampscott, Amesbury, Westford, Tyngsboro and Rockport will compete to move on to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington.
The competition will be judged by Daily Item News Editor Gayla Cawley, Item contributor and former writer Steve Krause, and Stacy Drector, an English teacher from St. Mary’s School in Lynn. The pronouncer of the event will be Walter Stone, North Shore Community College’s assistant dean of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).
Joel Abramson will welcome the competitors at 5 p.m. followed by remarks from Mayor Jared Nicholson and Lynn Superintendent of Schools Dr. Patrick Tutwiler. The competition will begin at approximately 5:15 p.m.
The winner of the regional spelling bee will receive a $100 Amazon gift card; round-trip airfare to Washington; week-long hotel accommodations at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Forest Heights, Md.; and spending money for the winner and chaperone, all paid for by the Abramsons.
The winner will also receive a Britannica Online Premium one-year subscription; The Samuel Louis Sugarman Award; a Merriam-Webster Unabridged Online one-year subscription and a Hexco three-month complimentary subscription to National Words eMentor, courtesy of The Daily Item.
The second-, third-, and fourth-place winners will also earn prizes, and all participants will receive a $15 Amazon gift card.
Other co-sponsors of the event include he City of Lynn, Lynn Community Television, Olde Tyme Italian Restaurant, Dunkin’ Donuts and Monte’s Pizza. Mary Abramson, Laurie Kennedy, City Councilor Dianna Chakoutis, Zachary Conti, Paula Villacreses and Ernie Carpenter have volunteered their time for the event.
To get to the regional spelling bee level, students from third to eighth grade had to win their school spelling bee. Then, each school champion was given a 50-word online exam on March 1, which consisted of 25 spelling words and 25 vocabulary words. The top scorers of the online round advanced to the final bee.
Local students who will be participating in the event on Tuesday are Amelia Stank from Pickering Middle School in Lynn; Nathaniel Vega-Yu from Lynn Vocational Technical Institute; Shania Taki from Lincoln–Thomson Elementary School in Lynn; Mark Grigoryan from Clarke Elementary School in Swampscott; Owen Fine from Village Elementary School in Marblehead; Natalie Navarrete from Marblehead Veterans Middle School; Sarah Montemor from Covenant Christian Academy in Peabody; and Prabhsimar Pabla from Lynnfield Middle School.
Other participating students are Kailey Allen (Danvers); Srivas Arun (Westford); Grace Carder (North Andover); Lily Cunha (Rockport); Gabriella Dansereau (Medfield); Evie Donovan (Norwell); Greyson Ebbrell (Danvers); Albert Esquea Gomez (Lawrence); Benjamin Evanowski (Still River); Nate Felix (Dedham); Dhruv M. Jain (Shrewsbury); Krish Kalla (Tyngsboro); Saketh Madhusudhan (Shrewsbury); Aneesa Maity (Walpole); Carter Neuschafer (Bolton); Leo Oakes (Amesbury); Kennisa Rotasayne (Fitchburg); Grace Rousseau (Mattapoisett); Kulsum Sayeed (Methuen); Ella Tandilyan (Wilmington); Mark Thampy-Abraham (Dover); Adarsh Venkannagari (Acton) and Nilawi Venkat (Lowell).
