This is the third year UAB has hosted the Alabama State Spelling Bee. The winner will represent the state at the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee.The 2024 Alabama State Spelling Bee will take place Saturday, March 16, hosted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Fifty-two students in fourth through eighth grades from as far north as Lauderdale and Dekalb counties to as far south as Mobile and Baldwin counties will vie for the 2024 Alabama State Spelling Bee Champion title. Hundreds of schools from across the state have participated in the spelling bees leading up to the finals.
The Alabama State Spelling Bee is sponsored by the Alabama Kiwanis Foundation. The bee is also supported by Scripps, as well as hundreds of schools across the state. This is the third year UAB has hosted the competition.
Check-in for the private event, to be held in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences’ University Hall auditorium, starts at 10 a.m. The bee will begin at noon.
The pronouncers are Janet Keys and John Hubbard, and judges are Douglas Ragland, Sandra Harrell and Ernest Hulsey.
The winner of the Alabama State Spelling Bee will represent the state at the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee to be held May 26-June 1 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. The broadcast schedule for the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee Finals will be announced May 1.
Stephen Briscoe, an eighth-grade student at Hanceville Middle School, was last year’s Alabama Spelling Bee winner. Stephen, 14, correctly spelled “schnell” to win the title, during the finals of the competition held March 18, 2023, at UAB.
Dev Shah, a 14-year-old from Largo, Florida, won the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee, correctly spelling the word “psammophile” to take home the $50,000 first prize, a medal and the Scripps Cup — the official trophy of the Spelling Bee. Eleven students made the finals after 11 million people entered spelling competitions throughout the world. The second-place winner is awarded $25,000, while the third is awarded $15,000, the fourth $10,000, the fifth $5,000, the sixth $2,500 and the seventh up to $2,500. In the event of a tie for first place, both students will win $50,000.
In 2019, Alabama student Erin Howard, 14, was one of eight co-winners of the National Spelling Bee. The competition had not recognized more than a two-way tie since it began in 1925. Only one other Alabama speller has been the Scripps National Spelling Bee champion, Julie Junkin in 1974.