SAN DIEGO (CNS) - The San Diego County Scripps Regional Spelling Bee returns to the Jackie Robinson YMCA Thursday, with dozens of students in eighth grade or below competing to represent the county on a national stage.
Benjamin Evans, an eighth grader from Twin Peaks Middle School in Poway, won the bee in 2024 by successfully spelling the word "epihippus," an extinct genus of the modern horse family that lived in the Eocene era, 46 million to 38 million years ago.
He then went on to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, ultimately being eliminated in the sixth round when he misspelled ravison, a rapeseed of an inferior quality.
Benjamin Evans was among 45 spellers from the original field of 245, the largest since 2019, to advance to the semifinals when he correctly answered his fifth-round multiple-choice vocabulary question earlier Wednesday, "Something described as sectarian is?" selecting "confined to the limits of one group."
There were 14 spellers who incorrectly answered their fifth-round multiple-choice vocabulary question and were eliminated.
Benjamin began Wednesday's quarterfinals by correctly spelling torchére, a tall ornamental stand for a candlestick or candelabra. There were 89 spellers eliminated in the fourth round, the first in the quarterfinals.
The 14-year-old was among 148 spellers who advanced to the quarterfinals by correctly spelling two words and answering a vocabulary question during Tuesday's preliminaries.
Benjamin began the bee by correctly spelling Gondwana, the great southern landmass that formed as a result of the division of a much larger supercontinent known as Pangea about 250 million years ago. He also chose the correct answer to the vocabulary question, "What is a symposium?" by selecting, "a conference in which people give speeches."
In the third round, Benjamin correctly spelled lycopene, a carotenoid pigment that is the red coloring matter of the tomato.
There were 54 spellers eliminated in the first round, 15 in the second and 28 in the third.
The bee will conclude Thursday.
Benjamin qualified for the national bee by winning the San Diego County Scripps Regional Spelling Bee in March, with two-time defending champion Mihir Konkapaka finishing second.
The bee is limited to students in eighth grade or below and who were born on Sept. 1, 2009, or later. Contestants for the 96th edition of the national bee range in age from 8 to 15.
San Diego County has produced two national spelling bee champions -- Anurag Kashyap in 2005 and Snigdha Nandipati in 2012.
The National Spelling Bee is May 27 to 29 in Washington, D.C. The event will celebrate its 100th anniversary.
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