The Los Angeles and Orange County contestants in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, Oliver Halkett and Katelyn Nguyen, advanced to the third round early on Tuesday May 28.
Halkett, a sixth-grader who attends The Mirman School in Brentwood, correctly spelled desiccate, a verb meaning to dry up, and chose the correct answer to the vocabulary question “Acerbity is?” selecting “a manner that is harsh, biting or irritated.”
Seventh-grader Katelyn Nguyen is surprised by a celebration for her at Stacey Middle School the day before she is headed to Washington, D.C., to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee contest in Huntington Beach, CA, on Friday, May 24, 2024. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Nguyen, a seventh-grader at Helen Stacey Middle School in Huntington Beach, correctly spelled ubi sunt, the Latin phrase meaning of or relating to a type of poetry reflecting on transience and mortality, and correctly answered the vocabulary question “A schooner is a type of?’ by selecting boat.
Oliver qualified for the national bee in National Harbor, Maryland by winning by the Los Angeles County Regional Spelling Bee in March, correctly spelling melologue, a noun meaning vocal and instrumental music interspersed with spoken declamation, as the winning word.
The 12-year-old loves to read, play soccer and the piano. His favorite book is “Animal Farm,” and he loves reading The Economist weekly. He also loves cooking new recipes with his mother.
Katelyn qualified for the national bee by winning the Orange County Spelling Bee in March, correctly spelling discretionary as her final word.
Katelyn’s pastimes include playing the piano and practicing martial arts. She has a blue belt in aikido. Her favorite book is “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”
The bee began with a field of 245 spellers from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Canada, the Bahamas, Germany and Ghana. The field is the largest since 2019.
Tuesday’s preliminaries at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center are being streamed on ION Plus, Bounce XL, Grit Xtra, Laff More and spellingbee.com until their conclusion, expected to be around 4:40 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time.
The bee is limited to students in eighth grade or below and who were born on Sept. 1, 2008 or later. Contestants for the 96th edition of the national bee range in age from 8 to 15.
The bee will conclude Thursday. The winner will receive $50,000 from the Scripps National Spelling Bee, $2,500 and a reference library from the dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster, $400 in reference works from Encyclopedia Britannica and a three-year membership to Britannica Online Premium and a $350 prize package from SugarBee Apple, including a SugarBee Apple gift basket and $250 gift card,
No speller from Los Angeles or Orange counties has won the bee.
