30 Students Vie To Become Anne Arundel Spelling Bee Champion

ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MD — Twenty public school students and 10 private school students will face off and battle to emerge the champion of the 32nd annual Anne Arundel County Spelling Bee Feb. 29. The event will be held at 10 a.m. in the board room of the Parham Building, 2644 Riva Road in Annapolis.

The county bee is presented by the Anne Arundel County Public Schools Office of Secondary Reading, English & Integrated Literacy. The champion of the county bee wins an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to compete in the 2020 Scripps National Spelling Bee in May. There will be other prizes for the county’s top spellers, including monetary awards from Educational Systems Federal Credit Union, as well as reference books and gift items from Merriam Webster, Medieval Times, Bowie Baysox, Southwest Airlines, Glen Burnie Regional Library, Chick-Fil-A of Annapolis and Wegmans of Crofton.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is a not-for-profit educational promotion sponsored by The E.W. Scripps Company in conjunction with businesses and community organizations around the world. Each sponsor organizes a spelling bee program in its community with the cooperation of area school officials: private, charter, parochial, public and home schools.

Participants in this year’s bee, listed in order of the school they represent, are:

• Annapolis Middle School: Araaf Zahid
• Arundel Middle School: Avery Thomas
• Brooklyn Park Middle School: Nicholas Lai
• Central Middle School: Owen Hurson
• Chesapeake Bay Middle School: Sherry Nester
• Chesapeake Science Point: Ayesha Shareef
• Corkran Middle School: Rowan McCrary
• Crofton Middle School: Vibu Puvvala
• George Fox Middle School: Gabriel Samayoa
• Indian Creek School: Ha Vi Albert
• Key School: Vivien Kaplan
• Lindale Middle School: Eniola Awosika
• Macarthur Middle School: Nakiera Bea
• Magothy River Middle School: Mauricio Palmar
• Marley Middle School: Cody Smith
• Meade Middle School: Malachi Rider
• Monsignor Slade Catholic School: Ethan Rizzutti
• Old Mill Middle School North: Mara Babb
• Old Mill Middle School South: Akeelah Jones
• School of the Incarnation: Ashley Miller
• Severn River Middle School: Lucas Brown
• Severn School: Emily Sutton
• Severna Park Middle School: Ben Campion
• Southern Middle School: Linda Johnson
• St. Andrew’s United Methodist Day School: Olivia Hurd
• St. Anne’s School of Annapolis: Alexis Parrott
• St. John The Evangelist School: Christian (CJ) West
• St. Martin’s Lutheran School: Maggie Porciello
• St. Mary’s Elementary School: Amelia Atkins
• Wiley H. Bates Middle School: Jeannette Manseau