Some states just spell better

Thu, May 29, 2008 - 9:41 AM

10:55

Certain states have better spellers than others.

In the past few years, New Jersey has been one of the dominating forces on the spelling bee scene. Prim Trivedi was the national runner-up in 1997, Jesse Zymet finished in the top 10 in 2003, Arjun Modi went into the eighth round in 2005, and Kerry Close won the bee in 2006.

In the past three years, two champions have came from California. Anurag Kashyap won the bee in 2005, and Evan O'Dorney was last year's champion. The state always has multiple spellers that go far in the contest.

My home state, South Carolina, doesn't do so well. We haven't had a top-10 finisher in decades. Weird, huh?

-Josh Dawsey