Bees are buzzing
Published:Tuesday | September 28, 2010 | 12:00 AM
The 2010-11 Gleaner's Children's Own Spelling Bee competition kicks off today with the parish finals in St Elizabeth and Manchester, which will be held at the St Matthews Anglican Church in Santa Cruz at 9 a.m. and the Mandeville Parish Church at 3 p.m., respectively.
The parish finals will be conducted in each parish over the course of the next two weeks, with the last being held in Westmoreland and Hanover on October 8.
More than 350 schools have entered spellers in the competition which is in its 51st staging this year.
Owayne Rodney of St Thomas More Preparatory in Clarendon was the 2009-2010 Spelling Bee champion. He made it to the semi-finals of the 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC, a great achievement in a competition of 273 spellers.
The Gleaner's Children's Own Spelling Bee is open to all Jamaican students under the age of 14, who would not have passed grade eight by February 1, 2011. The national finals take place in February next year.