5th AnnualSpelling Bee

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Co-sponsored by Victor Valley College

Your school is registered to participate in the Spelling Bee

Below is some information about the Bee.

The Fifth Annual Daily Press Spelling Bee will be held February 23rd, 2008at the Victor Valley College Student Activity Center. School bee winners fromeach participating school will be given an opportunity to compete for the firstplace prize, an all expenses paid trip to the Scripps National Spelling Bee inWashington D.C. May 28th, 2008 for the Bee winner and one chaperone.Prizes will be awarded to the 2nd and 3rd place winners as well, and allparticipants will receive a certificate of participation.

You will need to hold your own Spelling Bee before February 8, 2008. Forstudy guide information, please go to www.spelling bee.com

Included in this packet is information regarding the rules and requirementsfor the Fifth Annual Daily Press Spelling Bee

When you complete your spelling bee:

• Please submit a signed permission form from each student’s parent/guardian. No participant will be allowed to compete without a signedpermission slip.

• Please submit your school winner form with a photo of each participant byFebruary 8, 2008.

• Two winners from your spelling bee are invited to participate in the DailyPress Spelling Bee. Alternates may be designated in case of emergency, butonly 2 students from your school will participate in the Bee. If alternates aredesignated, they must also submit a permission slip to be eligible toparticipate.

• The Bee will be held on February23rd, 2008 at the Victor Valley CollegeStudent Activity Center, from 9:30 am-12:00 pm. Students participating willneed to arrive by 8:45am to register.

Date, Place, Time: The Daily Press Spelling Bee is on Saturday, February 23rd, from 9:30 a.m. -11:30 a.m. in the Student Activity Center at Victor Valley College. You will need to be there at8:45 for registration. Your parents, relatives, family friends, and teachers are all invited toattend. Admittance is free.

How It Will Work: At registration, you will be given a number to wear. You will sit with theother contestants in numerical order. The Bee will be conducted in rounds, with each contestantspelling one word per round. At the beginning of the round, speller #1 will come to the microphoneand be given a word to spell. Spellers are encouraged to say the word, spell it, then say it again(but you will not be disqualified if you only spell the correct word correctly). You should ask for thedefinition of the word and the origin of the word. You may also ask to have the word repeated orused in a sentence. IT IS THE SPELLER’S RESPONSIBILITY TO BE SURE THAT THEY ARE SPELLINGTHE CORRECT WORD. If you spell the word incorrectly, the pronouncer will say “I am sorry, thatis incorrect” and you will then return to your seat. All spellers that “spell-out” will leave thestage together at the end of the round. If you spell the word correctly, you will return to yourseat on the stage and remain there until it is your turn to spell again. The rounds will continuewith the remaining spellers spelling in numerical order until there is one winner.

Appeals: At the end of the each round, the Pronouncer will pause to see if any contestant wantsto appeal. If you think a mistake was made on a word you spelled, you may appeal the decision.The contestant is the only one who may appeal. The judges will review, discuss, and make adecision. The decision of the Daily Press Spelling Bee judges is final.

Permission Form: It is very important that you and a parent or guardian read and sign theattached Permission Form. The signed form must be returned to me on or before the day of theBee. You may fax the form to 760-955-5336, or mail or hand deliver it to the Daily Press beforethe Bee, or bring it with you to the Bee. If we do not have a signed form from you, you will notbe allowed to compete in the Bee!

Rules: Make sure you read and understand the attached rules. The most important rule toremember is this; If your word to spell is “share” and you say “S…H…A…I…” and then stop andstart over with “S…H…A…R...E”, you will be disqualified even if you eventually spell the wordcorrectly. If you stop spelling a word and start over, you must use the same letters in the sameorder as you did the first time you spelled it. This is the same rule that is used in the ScrippsNational Spelling Bee.

Above all, relax, study the Spelling Guide, gets lots of sleep, and have fun!

1. Spellers in the Daily Press 2008 Spelling Bee must qualify under basic requirements inaccordance with the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Below is a partial list of rules. For a completelist please visit www.spellingbee.com

A. The speller must not have won a Scripps National Spelling Bee championship in Washington,D.C.

B. The speller must attend a school that is officially enrolled with the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

C. The speller must not have passed beyond the eighth grade on or before February 1, 2008.

D. The speller must not have repeated fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth grade for the purposeof extending spelling bee eligibility. If the speller has repeated fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighthgrade, the speller must notify the Scripps National Spelling Bee of the circumstances of graderepetition by March 26, 2008; and the Scripps National Spelling Bee will, at its sole discretion,determine the speller’s eligibility status on or before April 30, 2008.

E. The speller—or the speller’s parent, legal guardian, or school official acting on the speller’sbehalf—must not have declared to another entity an academic classification higher than eighthgrade for any purpose, including high school graduation equivalency or proficiency examinationsand/or examinations such as the PSAT, SAT, or ACT.

F. The speller must not have earned the legal equivalent of a high school diploma.

G. The speller must not have completed or have been enrolled in more than six high school–levelcourses or two college-level courses on or before April 30, 2008.

H. The speller must not eschew normal school activity to study for spelling bees. The ScrippsNational Spelling Bee defines normal school activity as adherence to at least four courses of studyother than language arts, spelling, Latin, Greek, vocabulary, and etymology for at least four hoursper weekday for 34 of the 38 weeks between September 1, 2007, and May 24, 2008.

I. The speller must not have reached his/her 15th birthday on or before September 1, 2007.

2. Each speller will receive a number at registration, selected at random, which determinesthe sequence of contestants. This number must be worn at all times. Removal of the numberat any time during the competition is grounds for disqualification.

3. Words used in the Daily Press 2008 Spelling Bee shall be selected from 2008 Sponsor BeeGuide Book I, the source of which is Webster’s Third New International Dictionary and itsAddenda Section, copyright 2002, Merriam-Webster, Inc. Words will be pronounced accordingto the diacritical markings in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary and its AddendaSection, copyright 2002, Merriam-Webster, Inc., from which the pronouncer will select thedefinition or definitions given.

4. The Daily Press 2008 Spelling Bee will be an oral competition and will be conducted inrounds. Each contestant shall spell one word per round, with elimination on a “miss-and-out”basis, until one contestant remains.

5. Contestants will spell standing directly in front of a microphone, facing the pronouncer. Incompetition, after the pronouncer gives the contestant a word, the contestant will be asked topronounce the word before spelling and after spelling it. However, no contestant will be eliminatedfor failing to pronounce a word.

6. The contestant may ask the pronouncer to pronounce the word again, define it, or use it in asentence. The contestant may ask for the language origin of a word, if there are otherpronunciations, the part of speech, or if the word has a homonym. No other information aboutthe etymology or history of a word will be given. The pronouncer will grant all such requests untilthe judge agrees that the word has been made reasonably clear to the contestant. IT IS THESPELLER’S RESPONSIBILTY TO BE SURE THEY ARE SPELLING THE CORRECT WORD. The judgemay disqualify any contestant who ignores a request to start spelling.

7. Having started to spell a word, a contestant may stop and start over, retracing the spellingfrom the beginning, but in retracing, there can be no change of letters or their sequence fromthose first pronounced. If letters or their sequences are changed in the respelling, the spellerwill be eliminated. Note: An error will be called only after the whole word is spelled.

8. When the final number of contestants remain in a round, the judge will pause briefly toentertain appeals from contestants who spelled out in the last round. If there are no appeals,the remaining contestants will be declared finalists in that round. Should an appeal be filed,and one or more spellers return to competition, the round will continue with the remainingcontestants spelling in their original order.

9. Upon missing the spelling of a word, a contestant immediately drops out of the contest.Webster’s Third New International Dictionary and its Addenda Section, copyright 2002, Merriam-Webster, Inc. shall serve as the final authority for the spellings of words in the Daily Press 2008Spelling Bee. If more than one spelling is listed for a word, any of these spellings will be acceptedas correct if the word either matches the pronunciation and definition provided by the pronounceror if it is clearly identified as being a standard variation of the word that the contestant hasbeen asked to spell. Spellings at other locations having archaic, obsolete or regional labels (suchas North, Midland, and Irish) that are different from those at the main entry will not be acceptedas correct.

10. If a word has one or more homonyms, the pronouncer will indicate which word is to bespelled. If the listed word is not properly identified, either by defining it or by distinguishing thehomonyms, any correct spelling of any homonym of the word will be accepted.

11. Any question relating to the spelling of a word should be referred to the designated officials.

12. An appeal may be filed by the speller only. The judges will not entertain appeals from anyindividual seeking to dislodge another speller from the competition, or question the judge’sruling. An appeal will only be entertained if the speller attempted to clarify the word he/she wasasked to spell by asking the definition or other questions outlined in rule #8. An appeal must befiled with the designated officials at the end of the round, and before the next round begins.Appeals must be filed within this designated time period or they cannot be entertained.

13. The decision of the Daily Press judges shall be final on all questions.

School Winner FormFill out this form completely and return it

along with a photo of your participants by February 8, 2008Mail to: Daily Press NIE • P.O. Box 1389 • Victorville, CA 92393-1389 • (760) 951-6267

School Name Principal’s Name

Bee Coordinator Bee Coordinator Phone Number

1st place winner

Name Grade Birthday

Parent or Guardian’s Name

Home Address Home Phone

2nd place winner

Name Grade Birthday

Parent or Guardian’s Name

Home Address Home Phone

Alternate

Name Grade Birthday

Parent or Guardian’s Name

Home Address Home Phone

DAILY PRESS SPELLING BEE CONTESTANT PERMISSION FORM

My child, _______________________________ has my permission to participate in the Daily PressSpelling Bee on Saturday, February 23, 2008.

I understand that if my child wins the Spelling Bee, he/she will be eligible to compete inthe Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. May 30th, 2007. The Daily Presswill provide airfare, hotel accommodations, meals and airport transportation for thecontestant and one adult chaperone. Additional family members or guests accompanyingthe contestant will be responsible for all of their own expenses. The Daily Press will not beresponsible for any injuries or illnesses that may occur on the trip.

By agreeing to allow my child participate in the Spelling Bee, I understand that my child’sname and photograph may appear in the Daily Press. I also understand that this event maybe televised on local cable television.

Parent/Guardian Date

I have received and read the Official Rules for the Daily Press 2008 Spelling Bee.

Contestant Parent/Guardian