More than 280 spellers are taking part in the 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee, with a respectable showing from Missouri and Kansas.
Both states were admirably represented by the 2015 co-winners, Vanya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kan. and Gokul Venkatachalam of Chesterfield, Mo.
- You can keep up with the action on Twitter by following @ScrippsBee, which is tweeting each contestant's turn in the spotlight. Use the hasthag #spellingbee
- You also can watch on ESPN3 on online at ESPN.go.com (see schedule below)
MISSOURI (each each speller has a contestant number)
132 Kael Miranda | Columbia Daily Tribune, Columbia
133 Sophia Noel | Hoffman Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City
134 Samuel L. Cheslik | Raymore-Peculiar School District, Peculiar
135 Brayden Armes | Three Rivers Community College, Poplar Bluff
136 Lily Cassidy| Sedalia Spelling Bee Collaborative, Sedalia
137 Robert Bryan Esposito | St. Joseph News-Press, St. Joseph
138 Aanjaneyaa Natarajan Venkataraman | St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis
279 Peyton Wiewel | Lakeview Middle School, Kansas City
284 Deuce Ditton | Rolla Middle School, Rolla
KANSAS (each each speller has a contestant number)
90 Lawrence L. Zhang | Hays Daily News, Hays
91 Amrith Mathew Samuel | The Olathe News, Olathe
92 Gracie Elizabeth Schroeder | The Topeka Capital-Journal, Topeka
None of the local competitors advanced to the final round on May 25.
The 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee Finalists are spellers 142, 259, 20, 13, 152, 233, 32, 178, 229, 145, 184, 252, 39, 78...
— NationalSpellingBee (@ScrippsBee) May 25, 2016
Scripps National Spelling Bee Finalists continued: spellers 104, 201, 114, 219, 262, 94, 16, 74, 165, 167, 232, 15, 51, 122, 239, 49 ...
— NationalSpellingBee (@ScrippsBee) May 25, 2016
Scripps National Spelling Bee Finalists continued: spellers 181, 29, 280, 88, 129, 1, 179, 5, 55, 140, 30, 156, 278, 38 and 264. Congrats!
— NationalSpellingBee (@ScrippsBee) May 25, 2016
Get all of the word by word action @scrippsbee and watch on @espn Thursday night at 8pm ET. pic.twitter.com/3DRpwp1AHA
— The E.W. Scripps Co. (@EWScrippsCo) May 25, 2016
Schedule:
Preliminaries (Round Two)
Wednesday, May 25
8:00 – 11:45 a.m. EDTPreliminaries (Round Three)
Wednesday, May 25
1:15 – 4:45 p.m. EDTThe Announcement of Finalists will immediately follow the conclusion of Round Three and will be broadcast live on ESPN3.
Finals
Thursday, May 26
10:00 a.m. EDTFinals, continued
Thursday, May 26
8:00 p.m. EDT
