Marvin Young 2018
Schools across Kentucky and southern Indiana are buzzing about the upcoming 26th annual Ford Motor Company Kentucky Derby Festival Spelling Bee, where students from every corner of the Commonwealth will put their spelling skills to the test in a suspenseful competition for the title of KDF Spelling Bee Champion. This year’s bee is scheduled for 11 a.m., March 16, at the Kentucky Center in downtown Louisville.
The first KDF Spelling Bee hit the ground running 25 years ago when the festival adopted an existing local bee from the Courier-Journal that had prevailed since the 1920s. Since then, the event has only grown.
Contestants ranging from grades four through eight face elimination by misspelling even a single word. The rounds continue until only the final two competitors are left standing. To win the bee, one of the two finalists must spell a word correctly that the other has misspelled and then correctly spell an additional word. Aimee Boyd, KDF vice president of communications, describes the competition as “nerve-wracking” and “intense” but fun for participants and spectators alike. Even the audience gets involved, spelling out words along with the competitors and looking up words on their phones to test their own spelling prowess.
Impressively, the KDF Spelling Bee has witnessed four multi-year champions. John Tamplin of Jefferson County dominated the bee five years in a row, from 2002-2006. Emily Keaton (who appeared in Kentucky Monthly’s February 2013) of Pike County, won four years in a row, from 2010-2013, before handing the reins over to her brother, Paul (March 2016 issue), who won the next two years, 2014 and 2015. Finally, Tara Singh (May 2018 issue) of Jefferson County Private Schools won the bee the last three years, from 2016-2018.
To participate in the statewide KDF Spelling Bee, students must first advance through their local school and county bees, so even if they don’t go home with a champion title, there is a sense of accomplishment just for competing. “They are all winners when they get to our bee,” Boyd says. “They’ve already won in their county, and that’s a big deal.” These local bees usually occur in January and February. Though the local bees are held independently, the KDF reaches out to schools at the start of the year, providing vital materials and information.
KDF President and CEO Mike Berry has described the bee as one of the KDF’s “more far-reaching events”—and with good reason. By impacting its competitors in such a way that ripples throughout their lives and the lives of others, the bee demonstrates the KDF’s commitment to ongoing education.
The KDF Spelling Bee is funded by the Kentucky Derby Festival Foundation, the KDF’s charitable arm. The bee’s champion receives the Fillies Scholarship Fund, a $10,000-at-maturity savings bond. The second-place finisher receives a $5,000 savings bond. Savings bonds of $3,000, $1,500 and $1,000 are granted to the third-, fourth- and fifth-place winners, respectively. These scholarship rewards have been in place since 2009 and are made possible by sponsors such as the Fillies, Inc., Ford Motor Company and Texas Roadhouse. Berry hopes that the funds will help foot the winners’ college expenses.
Some KDF Spelling Bee winners go on to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, held annually in May in Washington, D.C. Winner of the initial, 1994 KDF Spelling Bee Eric Shields is now an English teacher at Western Hills High School in Frankfort, inspiring Kentucky youths to take an interest in literacy.
As for the future of the KDF Spelling Bee: “We’d like to see the event continue to grow, as far as participants,” Boyd says. “We have about half of the counties in Kentucky that participate and a few in southern Indiana. We would love to showcase students from every county in Kentucky and southern Indiana in the bee.”