Say Coca Cola, but spell B-E-E

In speech you can get away without crossing I’s and dotting T’s. However, you can’t get away with improper choices during a spelling bee.  The Coca Cola Spelling Bee is an annual event in which primary school students across the length and breadth of the country look forward to make new friend and learn new words. News Five Delahnie Bain got to the ABC’s of the Bowen and Bowen Spelling Bee.

Delahnie Bain, Reporting

It’s time to spell again and four hundred and eighty kids from across the country took on the challenge for the 2011 Coca-Cola Spelling Bee. But after the elimination rounds, that number has been narrowed down to eighty students who move on to the District level competitions.

David Craig, Sales & Marketing Mgr., Non-alcoholic Division, Bowen & Bowen

“We have just completed our forty zone eliminations. We are a truly national contest where we go to all ends of the country and all the primary schools in the country are involved. Right now we have completed the zones and we are just about to embark on a very important part, the part two, which are the six district contest. We have three coming up next week and three the following week.”

David Craig

This year’s competition is being held under the theme “Read… Spell… Learn… Live Positively”, which was derived from an international campaign.

David Craig

“It’s the global company’s commitment to making a positive difference in the way we live by redesigning the way we work. It has several tenets including recycling—by the way recycling will be the theme of a skit that we do. Remember we’re edutainment, we actually provide a lot of entertainment within the contest. It offers a sort of relief for the kids at the break and we have this wonderful mascot called A-Zee and we have a lot of talented people in the company and we will be performing a skit and the theme of that skit will be recycling.”

The Spelling Bee is now one of the largest national competitions, the result of seventeen years of growth.

David Craig

“We started in 1995 when Sir Barry Bowen decided to take what was already a contest done by the Ministry of Education and revitalize and reenergize it and make it the Coca-Cola National Spelling Bee. Seventeen years is a long time and we have worked continuously to every year improve it. This year in particular, we are using a lot of technology based information systems within the Bee itself and also to encourage the students to use those.  The winners are always the readers so it encourages kids to read. Certainly it provides some of the critical life skills that you need. For example, we are employers here at Bowen & Bowen and every day we get applications from different people for different posts and positions and that is one of the things that we notice, there are spelling errors in these applications and it makes a big difference. So there are so many benefits to spelling.”

The national championship round will be held in early June.  Delahnie Bain for News Five.

The prizes include trophies, laptop computers, dictionaries and novels.