JOURNALISM

PUBLIC SERVICE The Wall Street Journal

BREAKING NEWS REPORTING The Staff of The Oregonian, Portland

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING Brett Blackledge of The Birmingham (Ala.) News

EXPLANATORY REPORTING Kenneth R. Weiss, Usha Lee McFarling and Rick Loomis of the Los Angeles Times

LOCAL REPORTING Debbie Cenziper of The Miami Herald

NATIONAL REPORTING Charlie Savage of The Boston Globe

INTERNATIONAL REPORTING The Wall Street Journal Staff

FEATURE WRITING Andrea Elliott of The New York Times

COMMENTARY Cynthia Tucker of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

CRITICISM Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly

EDITORIAL WRITING Arthur Browne, Beverly Weintraub and Heidi Evans of the New York Daily News

EDITORIAL CARTOONING Walt Handelsman of Newsday, Long Island, NY

BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY Oded Balilty of the Associated Press

FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY Renee C. Byer of The Sacramento Bee

LETTERS,DRAMA & MUSIC

FICTION The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Alfred A. Knopf)

DRAMA Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire

HISTORY The Race Beat by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff (Alfred A. Knopf)

BIOGRAPHY The Most Famous Man in America by Debby Applegate (Doubleday)

POETRY Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey (Houghton Mifflin)

GENERAL NONFICTION The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright (Alfred A. Knopf)

MUSIC Sound Grammar by Ornette Coleman

MY BIGGEST DREAM IS TO WIN THE CHAMPION OF S.N.S.B

We are the nation’s largest and longest-running educational promotion, administered on a not-for-profit basis by The E.W. Scripps Company and 268 sponsors in the United States, Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Guam, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, The Bahamas, and American Samoa. Our headquarters office in Cincinnati, Ohio, coordinates the national finals, enrolls sponsors, and produces word lists and study materials. This office operates year round.

Each sponsor organizes a spelling bee program in its community, usually with the cooperation of area school officials. The champion of the sponsor’s final spelling bee advances to the finals in Washington, D.C.

Sponsorship is available on a limited basis to daily and weekly newspapers serving English-speaking populations around the world. However, sponsorship is not limited to newspapers owned by The E.W. Scripps Company. In fact, only 18 sponsoring newspapers are owned by The E.W. Scripps Company.

If a community desires participation and its local newspaper cannot assume sponsorship, special consideration for sponsorship may be given to a high-visibility organization or business within that community. Such businesses or organizations must demonstrate a history of promoting academic achievement in their communities.

Purpose

Our purpose is to help students improve their spelling, increase their vocabularies, learn concepts, and develop correct English usage that will help them all their lives.

Eligibility

In general, the program is open to students who have not reached their 16th birthday on or before the date of the national finals and who have not passed beyond the eighth grade at the time of their school finals. A complete listing of eligibility requirements may be found in the Suggested Rules for Local Spelling Bees.

History

This is the 80th Annual Scripps National Spelling Bee. The Louisville Courier-Journal started the event with nine contestants in 1925. In 1941 Scripps assumed sponsorship of the program. There was no Scripps National Spelling Bee during the World War II years of 1943, 1944, and 1945. Co-champions were declared in 1950, 1957, and 1962. Of the 82 champions, 43 have been girls and 39 have been boys. Click here for a complete listing of champions and their winning words.