School champions compete in Inland Valley Spelling Bee

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On Feb. 28, 106 school champions will gather at the Design Technology Center on the campus of Mount San Antonio College to compete in the eighth annual Inland Valley Regional Spelling Bee.
Spellers represent cities from Baldwin Park to Fontana and the foothill cities to Ontario and Chino.
Manuel Baca, professor and Mt. SAC trustee, and Carolyn Anderson, Community Relations Director for Waste Management will join Chief Judge Steve Lambert as judges for the finals to be held on March 7.
The champion will go to Washington DC to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in May. There, the winner will face close to 300 of the best spellers from all over the English speaking world.
Hannah Sylvestro, winner from 2013, is returning along with several others who have competed before. Spellers range in age from a 7-year-old first-grader to 14-year-old Rebeccah Norden-Bright, who’s returning for her sixth competition.
When the competitors arrive at 7:30 a.m., they’ll be divided into three groups. Over the next four and a half hours they will compete in three contests: oral spelling, written spelling and written vocabulary.
At the end of the morning, spellers with the top 30 scores will go on the finals on March 7. At that event, they will participate in a traditional spell-off, competing head to head until one speller is left.
The top speller will be presented with the traveling trophy, a copy of Mirriam Webster’s Third Edition and an all expense paid trip to Washington DC provided by Quest Literacy Consortium.