Rhea in the finals

Rhea Braithwaite at the Scripps Howard Spelling Bee championship yesterday.

JAMAICA'S SPELLING Bee Champion, Rhea Brathwaite, is still in the running, having qualified for the final spelldown this afternoon in the Scripps Howard Spelling Bee championship.

The 13-year-old contender was one of a field of 248 spellers which was reduced by half in the marathon first day of spelling.

Rounds four and five scheduled for today will begin approximately 9 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. respectively and continue 'till around 4:20 p.m. when the champion will be named.

The spelldown will be broadcast live on ESPN today, June 1 from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time (noon to 2.p.m. local time).

With confidence, poise and in clear diction, Rhea delivered the correct spelling for the words ambience, Infrastructure and Mahatma in the first, second and third rounds of the preliminaries today.

An Ohio eighth-grader was stopped cold by "Fahrenheit". And for a California youngster, Wednesday's opening rounds of the 2000 Scripps Howard US National Spelling Bee brought anything but "giddiness".

Brittany Monet Wilkinson appeared almost as shocked as everyone else when she missed "marshmallow". The 13-year-old eighth-grader from the Bahamas just shook her head after she spelled "m-a-r-s-h-m-e-l-l-o-w". After a collective gasp, the audience then cheered the stricken girl.

The Associated Press reported that many of the middle-school-age contestants were done-in by the likes of "duodenary", a term for anything containing 12 items, and "trophallaxis", which refers to how social insects exchange food.

But some more commonly used words wreaked havoc as well.

Esther Wright, a 12-year-old seventh grader in Columbus, Nebraska, forgot the letter "k", when she misspelled "maverick". Hilary Jones, a 10-year-old fifth-grader from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, missed "ignoramus"; she spelled it i-g-n-o-r-a-m-o-u-s. Jeff Tamura, a 13-year-old from Ramona, California stuffed his hands deep in his pockets and gave this unhappy spelling, g-i-d-d-y-n-e-s-s.

Dozens of parents, siblings and sponsors cheered the spellers on -- even when they missed -- in the ballroom of a downtown Washington hotel.

The contestants, most sponsored by their local newspapers, all won regional bees to qualify.

Among the prizes to be won are US$10,000 cash prize and an engraved loving cup; one set of Encyclopaedia Britannica; Corel software and promotional items and from Merriam Webster, a US$1,000.00 savings bond and a reference library.

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