Little Bee flies back to Union Island with historic win

Ten-year-old Anjali John, a student of the Stephanie Browne Primary School in Union Island, spelt her way into history this weekend, by winning the 15th edition of the Scotiabank Rotaract Spelling Bee Competition.{{more}}

The petite grade five lass topped her counterparts from seven other primary schools from the mainland, to win the coveted title at the finals, which took place at Frenches House on Saturday.

After 20 rounds of competition and a slow start by the visibly nervous students, a more confident and fluent John pulled away from the field, and amassing 50 points while contending with words like ELOQUENCE, JUVENILE, BARRICADE, CHRYSANTHEMUM, ETIQUETTE and PAGEANTRY.

At the end of the event, her closest rival, second placed Aldeiah Jacobs of the New Grounds Primary School scored 30 points, while a tie breaker between the two boys in the competition: Cosem Millington of the Layou Government and Jadyn Delpesche of the Rose Hall Government School, saw Millington edging out Delpesche for the third place spot with his correct spelling of the word INFERIOR. Millington placed third with 25 points.

The other pupils were Teyana Williams of the Brighton Methodist, Derlona Daniel of the Langley Park Government, Rhianna James of the Lodge Village Government and Zaida Davis of the Marriaqua Government.

The pressure of competition got the best of one student, who after being overwhelmed with emotion, opted not to complete the competition.

Among her winnings, John received a return trip to any Grenadine island of her choice, as well as a laptop computer and six months free Internet from Karib Cable, gift packages from Courts St Vincent Limited, Premier Distributors and the St Vincent Brewery, and books from Jujube Bookstore.

Other sponsors of the competition included Digicel, C.K. Greaves & Co. Ltd, Agricultural Input Warehouse, E.Moussa and Sons, Central Water and Sewerage Authority, and Scotiabank.

Saturday’s event was the 15th anniversary of the event being organized by the Rotaract Club of Kingstown, as part of its Community Service Programme. (JJ)