Owayne into semis

Jamaica's spelling champ Owayne Rodney has qualified for today's semi-finals of the 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee at the Grand Hyatt Washington hotel in Washington, DC.

Owayne, the reigning Gleaner's Children's Own Spelling Bee champion, wearing No. 88, successfully navigated the first two days of the competition.

The spellers took the Round One test at pre-assigned times on Wednesday. In the test, competitors spell 50 words using a computer keyboard. Only 25 of the 50 words count toward each speller's preliminary score. The spellers first stepped to the microphone for verbal spelling at 7 a.m. (Jamaica time) yesterday.

For each correct word in rounds two and three, spellers earned three points that counted toward their preliminary score.

In Round Two, Owayne, a grade-six student at St Thomas More Preparatory School in May Pen, Clarendon, spelled C-O-N-Q-U-I-S-T-A-D-O-R, which means a conqueror, especially one of the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru in the 16th century. He then spelled D-R-A-G-O-M-A-N, an interpreter or guide in countries where Arabic, Turkish, or Persian is spoken in Round Three.

Immediately after that round ended, competition officials determined the semi-finalists based on points earned in the preliminaries. Owayne was one of the 49 spellers who heard their names yesterday afternoon. The semi-finals will air live on ESPN starting at 9 a.m. (Jamaica time) while the championship finals start at 8 p.m. on ABC.

There were 273 spellers at the start of this year's competition, their ages ranging from eight to 15.