Dev Shah’s dream of returning to the Scripps National Spelling Bee ended in a soccer stadium, of all places.
On a cool, windy February day with occasional rain showers, Dev spent five miserable hours spelling outdoors at Exploria Stadium, the home of Major League Soccer’s Orlando City club, ultimately finishing fourth in a regional bee that he was forced to compete in for the first time.
“My regional was hard enough to win when it wasn’t encompassing Orlando,” said Dev, a 13-year-old seventh-grader. “The fact that it’s basically representing a third of Florida, that was stressful and I started studying extra, but it didn’t work out in the end, unfortunately.”
While the National Spelling Bee is back – fully in person at its usual venue outside Washington for the first time since 2019 – Dev’s experiences illustrate how the pandemic continues to affect kids who’ve spent years preparing to compete for spelling’s top prize. Schools and sponsors have dropped out of the bee pipeline, regions have been consolidated and the bee has fewer than half the spellers it had three years ago.
“There is a sense that COVID marks a significant break between the bee that used to be and the spelling bee that is now,” said Grace Walters, a former speller who coached the 2018 champion and three of the eight 2019 co-champs. “And I don’t know if that’s a bad thing or not, but I’m trying to keep a positive attitude about it.”