How 3 Arizona middle schoolers are preparing for the 95th Scripps National Spelling Bee

Every day when she gets home from school, 14-year-old Karen Opoku-Appoh spends hours memorizing root words and being quizzed by her parents to spell words from past national spelling bees.

It’s a strict routine to prepare for the 95th Scripps National Spelling Bee later this month, where she’ll be one of three students representing Arizona.

Karen’s spelling bee journey began at the classroom level at Marana Middle School. She then advanced through the school, district and county-wide bees to ultimately win the Arizona Spelling Bee in March.

She won the state spelling bee with “passage,” but not before having to spell “kakidrosis,” “sustentacular” and “all these other crazy words,” she said.

“Eventually, the judges ran out of words, so they just started giving us easy words to spell,” she said, laughing.

Statewide win: 13-year-old girl from Marana wins Arizona Spelling Bee

Along with Karen, who is in eighth grade, Arizona students Opal Mishra, a sixth grader at Basha Accelerated Middle School in Chandler, and Tazbah Spruhan, an eighth grader at Tséhootsooí Middle School in Window Rock, will travel to Maryland at the end of the school year for the contest.

They are among the 231 spellers who will be competing for the championship prize, which includes a trophy — called the Scripps Cup — and a $50,000 check. The contestants range in age from 9 to 14.

For Karen, spelling bees have made her more confident in herself. “I’m a really shy person,” she said. “I hate going to big events, standing on stage, looking out at the big crowd.”

But to make it to this point, she’s had to be on a lot of stages, she said. She’s trained herself not to be nervous. “Nerves don’t really help when you’re going for something this big,” she said.

Her favorite word that she’s come across, she said, is “kaffeeklatsch.”

“It’s a German word, and I like it because it just means ... an informal meeting, and having coffee and talking, like gossiping,” she said.

Tazbah, 13, is preparing for the competition by learning roots and spelling patterns in different languages. She’s taken German, Italian, English, Spanish, Japanese and French spelling lessons. Her favorite word, she said, is “rendezvous.”

Tazbah advanced to the national spelling bee after winning the Navajo Nation Spelling Bee, where “dorking” was her winning word.

“Growing up, I never really saw anybody that was Native in anything,” she said. “So, I feel really proud to be able to go to Washington and represent the Navajo Nation.”

Tazbah's spelling bee journey has changed how she views her own capabilities. “I’ve never really been one to give all my efforts on something,” she said. “The fact that I was able to study every day, continue working every day to get to this point, it really changed my perspective of myself.”

Last year, 14-year-old Harini Logan from San Antonio won the National Spelling Bee. In the competition’s first-ever spell-off, she secured her win by correctly spelling 22 words in 90 seconds. Her winning word was “moorhen.”

Preliminary rounds of the Scripps National Spelling Bee begin on May 30, quarterfinals and semifinals take place on May 31, and finals are scheduled for June 1.

The semifinals and finals will be aired on ION, which is available free over the air and on most cable, satellite and streaming providers. Preliminaries will be streamed on ION Plus and Bounce XL. Find more information about where to watch the bee at spellingbee.com/watch.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 3 Arizona students to compete at Scripps National Spelling Bee