UPDATE: 05/30/24 8 a.m.
Carey Chesire was one of 24 contestants eliminated last night from the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee Only 22 contestants advanced to the finals which will take place tonight.
Cheshire was stumped by the word sagenite. He incorrectly spelled in sagenite. What is sagenite? It’s a mineral made from a variety of rutile.
So what’s a rutile? A black or reddish-brown mineral consisting of titanium dioxide, typically occurring as needle-like crystals.
Sagenite variety of rutile was named in 1796 because because it is composed of small crystals the cross at the same angles, forming a mess-like network. Agenite comes from the Greek and Latin word sagena, which means net.
The finals of the national spelling bee air tonight on FUBU and ION.
ORIGINAL STORY: 05/29/24
.Carey Chesire, and 8th grader at Andover Middle School near Wichita, is making Wichita and Kansas proud.
Chesire, the winner of the Sunflower State Spelling Bee earlier this year, is doing quite well at the National Scripps Howard Spelling Bee taking place right now at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Maryland.
Cary Chesire has made it to the semi-finals and will compete this evening for an opportunity to advance to the finals on Thursday.
The Spelling Bee spans three days and crowns a new winner every year because previous champions are not allowed to compete. Furthermore, students cannot compete if they graduated eighth grade on or before Aug. 31, 2023, or have reached their 15th birthday on or before Aug. 31, 2023.
This year, the competition began with 245 competitors competing in the preliminaries. The morning began with 148 spellers on stage in the quarterfinals competition. By the end of the first quarterfinal round, there were 59 left, and 46 of those got through a vocabulary round to reach the semifinals.
The plan is to narrow the field to about a dozen finalists by the end of the day.
The finals are Thursday night, with the winner receiving a trophy and more than $50,000 in cash and prizes.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee champion will receive a $50,000 cash prize, right in line with what last year’s winner received. The winner also earns a medal and the Scripps Cup — the official trophy of the Spelling Bee.
That’s not all. Merriam-Webster will award the winner with a $2,500 cash prize and reference library, while Encyclopedia Britannica will hand the winner $400 of reference works and a three-year subscription Britannica Online Premium.
That’s a total of $52,500 in prizes and some nice perks from Encyclopedia Britannica. The winner’s school will also receive a permanent memory of the victory in the form of a commemorative engraved plaque.
Here are the other prizes for the other contestants, which largely mirror the 2023 prize pool:
Round/Place Prize
2nd $25,000
3rd $15,000
4th $10,000
5th $5,000
6th $2,500
All other finalists $2,000
Semifinalists $500 gift card & commemorative medal
Quarterfinalists $100 gift card & commemorative pin
How to watch Spelling Bee 2024
Dates: Wednesday, May 29, Thursday, May 30
Times: 8-10 p.m. ET
Channel: Ion TV
Stream: Ion Plus, Fubo
