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LISBON -- Beaver Local eighth grader Shaylynn Dennis returns to the Scripps national spelling stage today representing Columbiana County for the second consecutive year.
"I'm just going to do the best I can," the 14-year-old champion said.
Since winning the county bee in March, Shaylynn said "I've learned a lot more of Greek and Latin root words."
She's also been studying paths of other languages, such as African, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and French. Watching the finals of last year's national bee helped.
She can ask for the word origin and explained that if she knows the definition and the root word, she can figure out the spelling most times, not necessarily all the time, but sometimes.
While watching the national bee, she also noticed a lot of common subjects, such as plants, birds or fabrics and studied more of those topics.
"I've been doing a lot of reading, that can help in the vocabulary round," she said.
The first two rounds come from the hardest words in the Words of the Champions list. After that, any word in the dictionary is fair game.
Last year, she missed in the third round on the word "imprest" and hopes to go farther this year.
According to the Scripps National Spelling Bee website, spellingbee.com,
The competition will include 231 spellers competing in four segments, the preliminaries, quarterfinals, semifinals and finals. The second round of each segment of competition will be a word meaning round, requiring the speller to orally select the correct multiple choice answer to a vocabulary question read by the pronouncer.
The schedule for the 94th Scripps National Spelling Bee begins with the preliminaries from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. today and the quarterfinals from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, both being live streamed on ION Plus and Bounce XL.
The semifinals kick off from 8 to 10 p.m. Wednesday, followed by the finals from 8 to 10 p.m. Thursday, with both televised live on ION.
Shaylynn's trip to the nation's capital is sponsored by the Salem News, East Liverpool Review and the Morning Journal --covering both her and one chaperone. Just like last year, her entire family will make the trip, including her parents, Dave and Amanda, and her younger brothers, 11-year-old Lucas and 7-year-old Logan.
She's actually been logging a lot of travel miles this year, just returning from Washington, D.C. where she visited with her eighth grade class and traveling to Texas for a national robotics competition. Her wish list for the spelling bee trip includes the National Air and Space Museum, with the National Museum of American History a second choice.
During her class trip, she said she "saw all the monuments, which was really cool." They also saw the National Museum of Natural History and toured Arlington National Cemetery. Her favorite monuments memorialized Martin Luther King and FDR -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt --but she was really glad she was able to visit the grave of JFK, especially after seeing the site where President John F. Kennedy was shot on Nov. 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. An X marks the spot on the road near the old Texas Repository building.
During last year's national bee, Shaylynn said she met a lot of people and hopes to have some free time this year, noting the bee week is very structured. Besides the spelling, there are group activities and special presentations.
"I'm looking forward most to the competition," she said.
Her mom Amanda said she's very proud of her. She was able to go with Shaylynn to Dallas and said she's had so many great opportunities.
"She has grown so much this year, more confident," Amanda said.
Shaylynn expressed her thanks for everyone's help along the way, including her eighth grade teachers.
Shaylynn's bio on the Scripps website said she's been playing flute in her school band for four years and will join the marching band when she enters high school at the end of summer.
"She enjoys memorizing things, such as lines from the Constitution and digits of pi, of which she knows around 160," the bio said.
The past two years, she's been a member of her middle school robotics team and this year qualified for the 2023 Ohio State Vex IQ Middle School Robotics competition, resulting in the trip to Dallas. She's also on her eighth grade academic challenge team, ran track and cross country and and likes long walks and hiking.
The bio also said she likes Snickers candy bars, but Shaylynn confirmed she'll be eating the secret weapon recommended by Beaver Local band director and school spelling bee coordinator Matt Newman to calm her nerves: bananas.
Shaylynn's future includes College Credit Plus courses through Kent State University, along with Advanced Placement courses high school. Beyond that, she would like to attend The Ohio State University and focus on the medical field, possibly in general surgery.
For now, she'll use surgical precision in the spelling of words.