Scripps Spelling Bee 2018: Meet The Indiana Spellers

ACROSS INDIANA — More than 500 spellers will take part in 2018’s Scripps National Spelling Bee, which officially kicked off Tuesday in Maryland. Of the 519 participants taking part in the annual competition, 18 are from Indiana.

The preliminary rounds continue on Wednesday and the finals will be held on Thursday, May 31. On Wednesday, you can watch the Bee on ESPN 3. For the finals, tune into ESPN 2 from 10 a.m. - 2p.m. eastern for Part 1 and for Part 2, tune into ESPN at 8:30 p.m eastern.

The preliminaries consist of a multiple choice test and two rounds of spelling onstage, known as round 2 and round 3 respectively, Scripps explains. Spellers are eliminated for spelling incorrectly in either of the onstage rounds. After rounds 2 and 3, no more than 50 spellers head to the finals. (Read the full competition rules here.)

Here are the Indiana spellers taking part in the competition:

• Nicholas Pressler, Wakarusa
• Vanessa Xiao, Carmel
• Eleanor Gallagher, Terre Haute
• Samuel Schmidt, Westfield
• Daniel Larsen, Bloomington
• Andrew Toney, Winchester
• Daniel Sibincic, Crown Point
• Olivia Van Meter, South Bend
• Taryn Turchi, South Bend
• Kreesha Saha, West Lafayette
• Jashun Paluru, West Lafayette
• Abigail Origer, Kokomo
• Evan Bishir, Fairmount
• Alesya Rathinasamy, Muncie
• Caitlin Pooler, Indianapolis (Pictured)
• Landon Gibson, Evansville
• Swathi Menon, Evansville
• Allison Jones, Orleans

Check back with Patch and we’ll keep you updated with how the Indiana spellers perform.

And if you’re curious about whether you have what it takes to compete in the Bee, you can take the preliminaries test to find out.

Caitlin Pooler, of Indianapolis, in competition at the 2018 Scripps Spelling Bee.

(Photo credit: Mark Bowen/Scripps National Spelling Bee)