As spellers cross the stage on Wednesday after correctly spelling multi-voweled tongue-twisters during the preliminary round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, a smiling kid among the neat rows of seats can be seen giving fist-bumps to other students. His name is Adom Appiah, and he’s up next. The Spartanburg native walks to the microphone, and he pretends to write his word—“frustraneous” (definition: leading to frustration) on his hand. But when he spells it aloud, he mixes up an E for an I, and the bell rings. He’s done with the National Spelling Bee—for good. He is 14 years old and heading to high school in the fall, and this was the last year he was eligible to compete.
Appiah returned to the spelling bee this year through the new RSVBee program after tying for 41st place in 2017. He was one of 515 spellers this year, the highest number of participants the program has had in its 91-year history, far outnumbering last year’s count, which was 291. The influx of spellers is due to RSVBee, which provided alternative routes for students to make it to the national stage. Instead of winning a regional competition, RSVBee spellers could apply (for a fee of $750) if they won their school’s contest, or if they had previously reached the national finals. The boost in the number of contenders forced a reformatting of the tournament, and organizers had to add another day of spelling to the schedule in order to pull it off.
Doctor Jacques Bailly, the bee’s longtime official pronouncer, has even had to take a couple of breaks to rest during the marathon competition. Bailly is a familiar face for the contestants who journey to the convention center in National Harbor for the event every year. He won the bee in 1980, and has been its pronouncer since 2003. On stage, kids often crack jokes with Bailly, and his calm voice and sharp wit helps to set their nerves at ease. (“Yo,” the buttoned-down university professor greets one student. “Waddup.”)
Bailly notes during a press conference on Wednesday that because students have listened to his voice when they study their spelling words leading up to the competition, students feel like they know him. That’s why he says he has the “best fan club in the world.”
But Bailly also knows the students. Appiah’s mom, Marjorie, tells me that Bailly recognized her son from last year and greeted him by name when he saw him this time around. “How does this dude remember one kid . . . but as soon as Dr. Bailly saw him, he went, ‘Hi, Adom.’ And that’s amazing. As a mom, as somebody who’s always admired Dr. Bailly, I was like, oh my God, he knows my kid,” she says. “It’s like when you come here, you matter. You matter to someone. You’re not a statistic.” And it’s clear that Bailly loves his job. During the same press conference, he tells us he doesn’t actually want to take any breaks, but would “probably run myself into the ground doing this because I just love doing it” if he didn’t.
The longer-than-usual competition started on Tuesday morning, with an exam made up of 12 multiple choice spelling words (including killers such as “pteridophyte” and “eumolpique”) as well as 14 vocabulary questions. After that, all the spellers participated in the second and third preliminary rounds, during which they took stage to banter with Dr. Bailly and spell (or misspell) their words, leaving 321 kids. On Wednesday night, that number was reduced to just 41 spellers who achieved the highest scores on the written test and will proceed to the final rounds of the competition on Thursday.
And while the stakes are high, contestants (this year ranging from 8 years old to 15 years old) say they didn’t come to the Scripps National Spelling Bee just to win. Students point to a full week of activities, friends they have made from around the country, and guest speakers as parts of an unforgettable experience they will take home with them.
“Even if you don’t win or advance, it’s great,” Appiah tells me after his round. “It’s a lot of fun and you make new friends, and you get to have just a ball.”
The eighth grader says he was first inspired to compete in the bee in third grade, when his teacher encouraged him to tune into the Scripps National Spelling Bee as proof that boys can spell. He was enthralled, and he became determined to take part in the contest. Last year, the South Carolina teenager spent three hours studying per day as the bee got closer, and it paid off when he made it to the final round at the national level.
This year, his time was more divided between his interests: He has written his own book, started a nonprofit charity organization called Ball4Good, plays soccer—and is a member of his school’s band in his spare time. And he made time to finish reading the dictionary all the way through. “He was traveling all around South Carolina playing soccer with his dictionary,” Marjorie tells me.
Appiah says being on stage is pretty nerve-wracking. “You feel it, the self-pressure,” he tells me. “I got the feeling in my feet.” Despite the anxieties of competition, students are friendly with each other. Kids give out high fives like candy, and they play sports and goof around during their off time. Each speller receives a book full of photos and bios of each participant, which they can get signed during the week. Unfriendly rivalries are uncommon, according to the students.
“The only enemy that you really have is the dictionary,” Appiah says.
The final round starts at 10:00 a.m. Thursday, leading up to the prime time finale, which will air on ESPN at 8:30 p.m. ET. The contest is also being streamed by ESPN, and you can watch it here.
