The winner of the state bee will represent Alabama at the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., on May 28.The University of Alabama at Birmingham will host the 2023 Alabama State Spelling Bee on Saturday, March 18.
Fifty students in fourth through eighth grades from counties across the state will participate. More than 645 schools have participated. The final 50 student winners will vie for the 2023 Alabama State Spelling Bee Champion title.
The Alabama State Spelling Bee is officially sponsored by the Alabama Kiwanis Foundation. The bee is also supported by Scripps, as well as hundreds of schools across the state. 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 Armand St. Raymond, Sandra Harrell, Stephen Epley and Douglas Ragland.
The winner of the Alabama State Spelling Bee will represent the state at the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., on May 28. The finals will be broadcast live on ION Television the evening of Thursday, June 1.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee program is open to students who have neither turned 16 nor passed beyond the eighth grade, and who attend schools that are officially enrolled with the program for the current academic year.
Last year’s winner of the Alabama State Spelling Bee was Braydon Syx of Bibb County, whose winning word was “furrier.”
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. Alabama has had only one other Scripps National Spelling Bee champion, Julie Junkin, in 1974.