The US Scripps National Spelling Bee tournament Final is just around the corner. Here is some cool trivia about the event.
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Youngest Ever participant
This year’s finals will feature the youngest contestant ever. Edith Fuller is a 5-year-old from Oklahoma who beat more than 50 other children in Tulsa to advance to the finals. Annie Fuller, Edith’s mother, said family members learned Edith was gifted last summer when she spelled “restaurant” correctly on her first try. Edith breezed by spelling words like odori, colloquial and sevruga, according to Tulsa World. Her final word, jnana, means knowledge acquired through meditation, according to Merriam-Webster. For more details, see the following article in the Washington Post.
A Ratings Winner
ESPN airs the finals live, and Americans love to watch. The 2014 competition was so popular it buzzed its way to the top of Twitter’s ratings charts for cable networks. According to Deadline Hollywood , posts about the 2014 finals reaching more than 4.2 million unique audience members.
On the big screen
In 2002, a documentary about the national spelling bee was nominated for an Oscar. The movie, titled “Spellbound,” follows eight teenagers on their quest to win the 1999 National Spelling Bee.
The film opened to highly positive reviews from critics, and has an impressive score of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes from 137 reviews. In 2007, the movie was included as #4 of the “IDA’s Top 25 Documentaries” of all-time by the members of the International Documentary Association.
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