Ghana will be making history in the US from Tuesday May 31 – Thursday June 2 this year, courtesy some of your contemporaries. These contemporaries of yours are N’Adom Darko-Asare, Petra Sarpong, and Annie-Lois Acheampong. Why are they making history in the US next week? Well, let me indulge you…
Ghana’s Trio at the 94th Scripps National Spelling Bee, USA
N’Adom, who at only age six in 2018, was signed up in The Spelling Bee – a national spelling competition that teaches 6–13-year-olds the rudiments of spelling. Her brothers were the original intended participants in the programme, but she had shown so much interest in it that the school’s spelling coach at the time picked on her enthusiasm and had her parents sign her up.
Come 2019 and now aged 7, many who were following the programme were taken in by her performance. She didn’t win that year; it was her older brother, Kwabena Darko-Asare who emerged winner of The Spelling Bee 2019 and went on to Scripps Spelling Bee, USA to represent Ghana.
N’Adom was determined to win because she came back in 2020, and then in 2022; by spelling correctly the championship word, BATHYPELAGIC, she emerged the winner of The Spelling Bee! After 3 attempts, she finally realised her dream, which was to become The Spelling Bee champion. N’Adom has spoken of how the programme has not only exposed her to many words, but also instilled in her focus and discipline, which is positively impacting her schoolwork as well.
“My improved self-confidence and a deeper appreciation for words comes from my 3-year experience in The Spelling Bee. I have come to appreciate through the programme that hard work and perseverance do pay off,” she said in a speech.
Petra’s spelling bee journey began in 2019, when she was just 9 years old and joined the Bee because she thought it was a fun and interesting programme. As it was her first year, she would not win in 2019 – as is the case for many first-time Spellers. She would come back in 2020 to give it another try.
Then, COVID-19 struck, and Petra was afraid The Spelling Bee was going to be cancelled. Much to her relief, it wasn’t. It was rather moved online. This made it easy for Spellers to continue training and preparing amid the pandemic. Petra studied lots of words, including prefixes, suffixes, roots and more, that helped her advance in the competition.
However, she still didn’t win; but she didn’t give up, and gave the Bee another attempt in the 2021/22 season. She spent a lot of time and effort preparing for the Bee and going through the tonnes of assignments given. “Thankfully, I did all my assignments and performed very creditably in the Vocabulary tests (of the national finals) as well, because these two are what gave me the opportunity to join the winner to represent Ghana in the 2022 Scripps Spelling Bee in the USA,” she narrated to her sponsors.
Annie-Lois’ Bee journey, albeit arduous, has been rewarding. She heard of the Bee in 2021 through her teacher, and being one who loves challenges, signed up for it. Preparing for The Spelling Bee competition was a totally new experience for her because she was oblivious to all the technicalities involved in spelling. For instance, how the origin of a word helps one figure out its spelling.
“Before entering the competition, I considered myself a fairly good Speller, with a firm grasp of the English language. However, through the rigorous preparation for the competition, I began to notice how my regular English class work had improved remarkably, spurring me on to commit fully to the programme”, she mentioned in her speech to her sponsors.
All of Annie-Lois’ leisure time and energy was now directed toward this competition and it did pay off! She also earned the opportunity to join the winner to represent Ghana at this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee in the Washington D.C. area.
Since their win in February this year, they have been receiving extra training from The Spelling Bee team every weekend from morning till evening, and on holidays. Now, get this; Petra is homeschooled, Annie-Lois is in a boarding school outside Accra and N’Adom lives quite far away from the city of Accra and yet, with the combined power of technology, their parents, teachers, and schools’ unflinching support, plus their collective determination to make Ghana (the only African country participating) proud at the 94th Scripps National Spelling Bee in the USA, has seen them through their preparation.
The story of these 3 Spellers should inspire us all in our everyday endeavours to never give up. And may I ask that you support them with your thoughts and prayers as they go out there and make Ghana and Africa proud!
