GREYCORNEL GREY, the all-island champion of the Gleaner Company-sponsored 2004 Spelling Bee Championships, exited in the third round of the Scripps Howard Spelling Bee competition in Washington D.C. on Thursday.
He was eliminated after incorrectly spelling 'shavianna' which according to the New Shorter Oxford Diction-ary means 'objects or texts relating to George Bernard Shaw'. The competition was eventually won by David Tidmarsh, an eighth-grader at the public Edison Intermediate Center in South Bend, Indiana, who beat his rivals by correctly spelling 'autochthonous' (which means indigenous).
The 14-year-old took home the top-prize package of US$12,000 and an engraved cup from the competition, plus an additional $5,000, encyclopaedias, a $1,000 savings bond and a reference library from other sponsors.
The field for the 77th Scripps Bee began with 265 spellers who had emerged from at least nine million children who participated in local contests.
