The Scripps National Spelling Bee Championship Gains More Attention

FINOLA HACKETT, Spelling Bee Competitor: Bdelloid. B-d-e-l-l-o-i-d, bdelloid.

RAY SUAREZ: The word means "like or relating to a leech." And correctly spelling it just put 14-year-old Finola Hackett a step closer to being crowned the queen bee of this year's annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, a competition that's always been popular but has gained more and more attention in recent years.

This May, roughly 275 regional champs descended on Washington, D.C., for the annual event. The contestants hail from all 50 states and sometimes use their own peculiar methods to survive to the next round.

And international competitors travel from as far away as New Zealand to throw their hats in the ring. The prize: a big trophy; big checks, totaling over $37,000; and bragging rights for a lifetime.

Since 1994, the bee has been broadcast exclusively on the cable sports network, ESPN, but this year, as it grows in ratings, the bee makes its debut on ESPN's broadcast parent network, ABC, on its primetime lineup, tonight at 8 o'clock Eastern.

ANNOUNCER: ... only on ABC.

RAY SUAREZ: The two-hour finale also includes mini-profiles of the contestants.

SAMIR PATEL, National Spelling Bee Champion 2005: I am Samir Patel, and I am a verb-a-maniac.

RAY SUAREZ: The competition's switch to primetime was the latest in the growing buzz around the bee. It's also inspired big-screen hits.

SPELLING BEE COMPETITOR: Logorrhea. L-o-g-o-r-r-h-e-a.

SPELLING BEE JUDGE: That is correct.

RAY SUAREZ: The 2002 documentary and Academy Award nominee "Spellbound," last year's "Bee Season," based on a best-selling novel by the same name, and "Akeelah and the Bee," released this April...

LAURENCE FISHBURNE, "Akeelah and the Bee": You want to win what?

KEKE PALMER, "Akeelah and the Bee": I want to win the National Spelling Bee!

LAURENCE FISHBURNE: Yes!

RAY SUAREZ: ... a fictional account of an African-American girl from the inner-city of Los Angeles who wins the national bee. Bee-fever has even hit Broadway. The musical, "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," won two Tony awards last year.

In the meantime, tonight these 13 finalists will have a chance to become a celebrity in their own right, provided they get their ABCs in the right order.

RAY SUAREZ: For more about the bee and the students who participate, I'm joined by James Maguire, author of the book "American Bee: The National Spelling Bee and the Culture of Word Nerds."

Well, why do spelling bees suddenly seem to be in the national cultural fast lane? What happened?

JAMES MAGUIRE, Author, "American Bee": They are big right now. We have seen a little boomlet in spelling bees.

I think the thing that really sparked it was the 2002 spelling documentary "Spellbound." But I think the thing that has really enabled it to catch on is, you know, the spelling bee is the original reality TV show and, of course, reality TV is very big right now.

I kind of hate to make the comparison, because I think the spelling bee has a lot more value than a lot of reality TV, but it's very similar. You know, we go round by round. Spellers are eliminated. We sort of get to know the spellers and their little idiosyncrasies, and finally we get to those last few rounds that we see, you know, who's going to win.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, this afternoon a lot of spellers were eliminated. They've gotten down to the final 13.

JAMES MAGUIRE: Right.

RAY SUAREZ: From what you saw in your reporting, what are those kids likely to be doing in these final hours before they head to the big, final round?

JAMES MAGUIRE: Right. Well, of course, worrying and being anxious and tense, to be sure, but there's probably some last-minute studying. And what these kids do to be able to handle these large words is they really do a lot of root word work.

So they study, you know, roots of, you know, Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian, Spanish. That way they can spell words they've never actually seen before.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, let's talk a little bit more about that, because to be a speller at this level you can't just be a good reader or someone who's gradually acquired a wide vocabulary. You have to do special prep, no?

JAMES MAGUIRE: You really do. I mean, the bee organizers put out something called "The Consolidated Word List," which is 23,000 words long. And these top spellers, most of the kids tonight, will have memorized that entire 23,000-word list.

So they've memorized an enormous amount; they know their word roots. And, of course, there's also an element of luck. I mean, there's no way around that. Because in the Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, there's 475,000 words. And so, you know, you never know what word you're going to get or what word your competitor is going to get, and there's always upsets every year.

RAY SUAREZ: So you could go out on a word that, if you had been one kid ahead or one kid behind, you would have gotten?

JAMES MAGUIRE: You know, the winds of fate really blow unpredictably at the bee.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, you call it in your subtitle "The Culture of Word Nerds."

JAMES MAGUIRE: Right.

RAY SUAREZ: Are these kids like a tribe apart, a different cut of kids?

JAMES MAGUIRE: You know, these are kids who really love to study, many of them, which, you know -- call that an unusual trait, but they study often, you know, seven days a week, you know, month after month, sometimes year after year until they finally make it to the bee.

You know, after I've talked with a lot of them, though, I've found out that they're a lot more normal than you might expect. When you actually get to know the kids, I mean, they're more well-rounded, really just very, very interested in this one topic.

RAY SUAREZ: They disproportionately are drawn from immigrant families, families from South and East Asia.

JAMES MAGUIRE: Right.

RAY SUAREZ: Have you thought about why?

JAMES MAGUIRE: Yes. Well, you know, Indian-Americans are very, very strong at the bee. And, of course, an Indian-American boy won in 1985, and I think it inspired a lot of immigrant pride.

I think recent Indian immigrants said to themselves, "Well, if one of our own can win this quintessentially American contest, then we really want to be, you know, interested in this." So Indian-Americans put a lot of emphasis on it.

Actually, of the last seven championships, five have been won by Indian-Americans.

RAY SUAREZ: That's a tremendous number.

JAMES MAGUIRE: Yes, really, it's a very strong presence of Indian-Americans at the National Spelling Bee.

RAY SUAREZ: There are some knocks on the bee, one that rote learning is prized over real comprehension and knowing what these words mean.

JAMES MAGUIRE: Well, the thing is, you know, these kids have a sprawling vocabulary. I mean, there's a lot of homonyms there. And so if you are just doing rote memorization, you don't make it to the finals. You might make it to the national bee possibly, but to get to the final rounds it is really all about understanding.

RAY SUAREZ: But, on the other hand, having just brought in a criticism, I guess I should say that it's nice to see kids that age celebrated for something other than athletic prowess or being pretty.

JAMES MAGUIRE: Yes, exactly. I mean, that's the thing I really love about it. I mean, it is not just spelling, you know? It's etymology; it's vocabulary; it's parts of speech. You know, the bee really encourages reading. All these kids are really big readers.

So, I mean, I love the fact that it's on primetime. It's going to advertise the idea of, you know, studying, and reading, and learning.

RAY SUAREZ: Is this a harder competition to win than it would have been 20 or 40 years ago?

JAMES MAGUIRE: It's far harder. I mean, if you look back at some of the earlier decades, the words were much easier. I mean, the word "knack" was the winning word one year, you know, k-n-a-c-k. You know, "therapy" was a winning word one year.

You know, in simpler times, kids just showed up and spelled. Now these kids are really working year-round so those kind of words would just be, you know, round one or two words.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, how do they handle the pressure? I mean, they are, what, nine to 15 years old or so, and they seem to be handling themselves quite well on national television. Are there some who aren't handling the pressure that well?

JAMES MAGUIRE: You know, handling the pressure is a big part of it. And it is difficult for these kids. And I know they really feel the stress of it.

But if you look at the winners and the top finalists, these are kids who can really handle pressure. And it really sort of distinguishes the kids who can just spell well from the kids who can really, you know, handle the trial by fire.

RAY SUAREZ: Are there any cases that you came across where kids were really sort of heavily burdened by this and it wasn't fun anymore?

JAMES MAGUIRE: Well, I've seen some kids -- there was one boy last year that I know is extremely well-prepared. He had just studied, and studied, and studied. And there was an early round, and he came across a word that was not too hard, and he just sort of psyched himself out.

And he spelled it really rapidly, even before he thought, and you could just see him sort of bolt upright like, "Oh, no, I've blown it." You know, the pressure got to him.

RAY SUAREZ: James Maguire, thanks a lot.

JAMES MAGUIRE: Thanks, Ray.