View full sizeIsabella Nilsson reacts with a smile after winning in Cuyahoga County, a victory that qualified her to compete in this week's Scripps National Spelling Bee.WASHINGTON -- The good news for Isabella Marie Nilsson is that she spells like a champion. Otherwise, she would not be heading to the Scripps National Spelling Bee this week.
The bad news is that to win, the 13-year-old eighth-grader at Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights must spell better than 277 others. And 72 of them know the drill better than Isabella because they have been in the prestigious spelling competition before.
"I'm a bit of a rookie, I guess," she says.
The national spelling bee, sponsored by the E.W. Scripps Co. in conjunction with media companies across the nation, is where some of the brightest young minds come to compete and make their school communities proud. Each speller has already won locally, but the pressure builds in Washington because of a national spotlight that includes live television.
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Isabella is an accidental contestant. She was supposed to be an alternate for her school at the Cuyahoga County level and stepped in when the primary contestant withdrew before that March round. She says she likes spelling -- a lot -- but never really thought of herself at this level.
"I'm excited, but I'm really nervous," she said. "There are a lot of good spellers in the competition."
The competition begins with a computer spelling test on Tuesday. Live spelling starts Wednesday with two rounds, carried live on ESPN3.com. Each step winnows the field before the semi-finals, which start Thursday at 10 a.m. and will be covered on ESPN 2. The championship finals are Thursday night, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., carried on ESPN.
Ohio has 18 spellers competing, including Isabella, who is sponsored by The Plain Dealer. Also from Northeast Ohio are Vishnu S. Nistala, 12, an eighth-grader at Mentor Shore Middle School in Mentor; and Veto P. Lopez, 13, an eighth-grader at St. Jude School in Elyria. Vishnu is sponsored by the News-Herald, of Willoughby, and Veto by the Educational Service Center of Lorain County.
Bee veterans include Nicholas B. Rushlow, 14, an eighth-grader in Pickerington who has made it to the Scripps national competition every year since 2008. He was in 14th place last year.
This will be the third national competition for Sunny Levine, 13, an eighth-grader at Claggett Middle School in Medina. She tied for 36th place in 2011. Sunny is sponsored by the Akron Beacon Journal.
And LeeAnn Mekkattukulam Jose, 12, a seventh-grader at Wapakoneta Middle School, is back for her second year. Her brother George participated in three Scripps national competitions, and her brother Joseph in one.
Dharani Kotekal, 14, an eighth-grader in Mingo Junction, near Steubenville, also returns this year for her second bee; she first participated in 2010.
The last Ohioan to win the Scripps bee was Anamika Veeramani in 2010 -- breaking a string of Ohio losses since 1964, when William Kerek of Akron, now a doctor, was national champion. Then a 14-year-old eighth grader from North Royalton, Anamika won by spelling "stromuhr" correctly. The word describes a tool that measures the speed of blood through an artery.
Anamika had tied for fifth place the previous year.
Most students in the national bee are in seventh or eighth grade, but this year's participants also include a second-grader, two third-graders and three fourth-graders.
Fifty-one percent of the spellers are girls, according to Scripps. Sixty-nine percent of the spellers attend public schools.
Most are from the United States, but this year's contest will also include participants from American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.
The winner takes home $30,000 and a trophy; a $2,500 savings bond and complete reference library from Merriam-Webster; a $5,000 scholarship from the Sigma Phi Epsilon Educational Foundation; $2,600 in reference works from Encyclopaedia Britannica, and an online language class and Nook digital reading device from Middlebury Interactive Languages.