Seven Missouri students buzz their way to national spelling bee

The top spellers in the United States and beyond will attempt to spell many complex words in the Washington, D.C. area this month, including seven Missouri students. Students will be competing in the 96th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee for a shot to take home the national championship trophy.

The Missouri students competing are from Columbia, Lee’s Summit, Harrisonville, Hornersville, Branson, Hamilton, and St. Louis.

This competition will not be the first rodeo for Aanya Shetty, Sonia Kulkarni, Garrett Fry, and Mariah Coffey. They are all back from the 2023 bee for another shot at the title.

The contest will have 245 spellers from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Department of Defense Schools in Europe. Spellers will also represent three countries outside of the U.S.: the Bahamas, Canada, and Ghana.

To give you an idea of the complexity of words that spellers have been up against, last year’s Missouri spellers had words such as contrapposto, rongeur, furuncle, cornichon, and glyceraldehyde.

To check out the bee, here is the schedule:

Preliminaries: May 28 from 7 a.m.-6:40 p.m. on Ion Plus
Quarterfinals: May 29 from 7 a.m.-12 p.m. on Ion Plus
Semifinals: May 29 from 7-9 p.m. on Ion
Finals: May 30 from 7-9 p.m. on Ion