Local speller ready to compete in national spelling bee

Vicky Klukkert, The Daily Star, Oneonta, N.Y.
·2 min read

May 29—Oneonta Middle School eighth grader Richard Tang will compete in the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Oxon Hill, Maryland, this week.

Tang traveled with his family to the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Forest Heights, Maryland, Sunday to take part in the competition, Martha Ryan, area spelling bee program director with DCMO BOCES, said. There was a Hall of Champions reception with other spellers from across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Guam, Ghana, U.S. Virgin Islands and The Bahamas Sunday, and the opening ceremony was held Monday night.

The opening ceremony will be shown at 2 p.m. on ION Plus and Bounce XL Tuesday, May 30 during a one-hour break in the competition.

Ryan said Tang was assigned number 137 and will compete at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday. It will be shown on the ION Plus channel. He will also take a vocabulary test Tuesday. "If he makes it through the preliminary round, he will compete in the semifinals the following day," Ryan said.

According to the Scripps National Spelling Bee website, Tang will be one of 230 competitors in this year's competition.

Ryan said Tang had to practice spelling 5,000 words and learn their vocabulary prior to the competition. Members of the Scripps National Spelling Bee's word selection panel met Sunday to finalize the words that will be used in the competition, the Associated Press reported. By the time of that gathering, two days before the bee, the word list is all but complete, the AP said. For the panelists, the meeting is the culmination of a yearlong process to assemble a word list that will challenge but not embarrass the 230 middle- and elementary-school-aged competitors — and preferably produce a champion within the two-hour broadcast window for Thursday night's finals, the AP said.

Tang won The Daily Star Regional Spelling Bee in the 15th round by spelling "duel" correctly after Cooperstown eighth-grade student Emily Menzies misspelled "eaglet" in the 14th round.

Tang said after he won in January that he wanted to do his best in the competition, so he studied, and his parents, Jim Li and Sue Tang, conducted mock spelling bees at home. He said he also downloaded the World Club app to practice. The app includes all the words contestants in the Scripps National Spelling Bee may be asked to spell during competition.

In January he said he planned to practice more before this week's competition and, "I look forward to the challenge and meeting new people and making friends."

The regional spelling bee is sponsored by The Daily Star, which pays for the entry of schools into the regional tournament and pays for the regional champion's trip to the national competition.

Vicky Klukkert, staff writer, can be reached at vklukkert@thedailystar.com or 607-441-7221.