[kaboom]

Good thing this kid is homeschooled. Knowing how to spell a word like that will get you beat up in public schools.

As they always say "Chicks dig the Scripps!".

[gobucks]

Last summer Evan was chosen as an onstage contestant for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, but the judges could not outsmart his spelling skills and resorted to making him spell out of order and giving him non-dictionary words. Evan is dedicated to Tae Kwon Do and has earned a first degree black belt. He loves to play piano: In addition to taking lessons at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he accompanies his church’s children’s choir. This year he began attending the Berkeley Math Circle and achieved success in various math competitions: He earned a perfect score in the American Mathematics Competition for 10th grade, the American Invitational Mathematics Examination, and the Bay Area Math Olympiad. He also placed fifth in the Northern California Mathcounts competition. His parents are Jennifer O’Dorney, his home school teacher, and Michael O’Dorney, a Bay Area Rapid Transit train operator.

From the bee website...

[gobucks]

School Type:
192 public (67.13%)
38 private (13.29%)
36 home (12.59%)
14 parochial (4.9%)
5 charter (1.75%)
1 virtual (.34%)
Of last year’s 274 spellers, 195 were public-schooled, 37 were home-schooled, 26 were private-schooled, 13 were parochial-schooled, and 3 were charter-schooled.

Hmmmm....about 1 out of 10 of the these kids who made it to the bee were homeshcooled.

Now of the 15 finalists, 5 were home schooled...

Wow.

[politicket]

As they always say "Chicks dig the Scripps!".

There's a really funny story regarding the 2005 National Spelling Bee. The spellers were assembled on stage for Round #2 and began spelling their words, one by one.

On the stage curtain behind them were hanging big letters that spelled out: "Scripps National Spelling Bee".

About halfway through the round the "S" fell off of "Scripps", so the audience was now reading "Cripps National Spelling Bee" -- kind of a funny moment, and good for relieving the tension that the kids were feeling.