Thursday, June 3, 2010

AND NOW THINGS GET INTERESTING: There are 48 Semifinalists who are going to be spelling over on ESPN tomorrow morning. Devastatingly, it appears that Vanya Shivashankar is not among them. She’s only 8 years old so she’ll live to spell another year. Keep an eye out for her. Now let’s look at the competitors:

Of the foreigners, only Tom Winter from New Zealand, Sonia Schlesinger of Japan, Laura Newcombe of Canada and Owayne Rodney of Jamaica remain. All four of them were impressive today.

It's going to take me some time to go through and read about all of these kids. Off the bat, I personally like Michaela Minock of Chicago mainly because in her bio, she states that her true passion is dance. Gina Liu from Charleston, Illinois is a violinist and oboist who creates stop-motion animations in her spare time. I love the well-rounded kids. They make me feel better about the time they spend spelling words alone in a room.

Wanna know more but feel too impatient to wait for me to read up? Stop by here and check the spellers out.

Updated: Who are the Top Guns of the Bee? The elite? There are three spellers who were top ranking finalists last year: Tim Ruiter of Reston, Virginia who tied for second place in 2009; Anamika Veeramani of Cleveland, Ohio who tied for 5th and Geneva, NY’s Neetu Chandak who’s been Beeing it since 2007 and last year tied for 8th. Meet the Badasses of the Spelling World.

14 comments:

  1. BeeFan6:12 PM

    I see that semifinalist Grace Remmer, an avid classical musician, says she'd like to meet George Friedrich Handel.




    Do you want to break the news to her or should I?

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  2. I'm happy for Hannah Evans.

    Tentative pool rule: no more than one person who's been in primetime before (there are three left), plus one more speller.  Still thinking it through.

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  3. BeeFan6:23 PM

    Veeramani, Ruiter and Chandak?

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  4. Correct.  Nick Rushlow is a three-timer who finished 17th last year, but I assume that's the big three everyone will be trying to grab.

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  5. calliekl6:58 PM

    Sorry to threadjack, just wondering if among the Bee news people had seen that the trifecta has been completed: Rue McClanahan died as a result of a stroke this morning. RIP dear lady, the hearafter is not ready for Blanche Devereaux.

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  6. lauri7:09 PM

    tivo set for semifinals? check.  tivo set for finals?  oh look, the seattle abc affiliate isn't showing the bee finals until sunday morning at 9am.  perfect.   i haven't been this frustrated with abc since the never-ending V countdown clock during lost.  arrgh!

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  7. Uncle Spike7:11 PM

    If I can make a recommendation: make sure to record the shows AFTER the semifinals and finals, too. The bee tends to run overtime, and you don't want to have the show suddenly cut off right before the last speller gets his or her word.

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  8. gretchen7:20 PM

    I'm a little in love with Sarah Gadre, because she's a fan of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  Fans of nineteenth-century feminists, unite!  I would like to see fifth-grader Rachael Cundey's class performance of Hamlet, in which she stars.  Hannah Evans grew a prize-winning giant pumpkin, and Elizabeth Platt has "written her first fictional book based on a group of friends who discover and help save a secret world."  She is planning to write several sequels.  That sounds like a series I'd like to read.  

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  9. Marsha7:38 PM

    One of them today wanted to meet Anne Frank. I'm not breaking that news either.

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  10. BeeFan7:56 PM

    About ready to jump in the pool.

    If you get my drift ...

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  11. BeeFan8:18 PM

    What was the cutoff score?  Does anyone know?

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  12. codeman3812:55 AM

    Anyone know what happened with Rachael Cundey? She was definitely listed on the semifinalists page earlier; I thought I was just imagining it as a Georgia native, but I've seen two comments here confirming that it wasn't just me. Did it have anything to do with the instant-replay issue in round 3?

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  13. Anonymous3:14 PM

    Thank you, Uncle Spike!  I will change the settings for the finals when I get home.

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    ReplyDelete