List of Scripps National Spelling Bee Champions

List Of Scripps National Spelling Bee Champions

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is a competition held annually in Washington, D.C., in the United States at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center over a two-day period at the end of May or beginning of June. The spelling bee competition began in 1925, and was organized by The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, until the Scripps Howard Broadcasting Company assumed sponsorship in 1941. The media conglomerate, now known as the E. W. Scripps Company, has continued to sponsor the competition to this date. The competition was canceled from 1943 to 1945 due to World War II. Every speller in the competition has previously participated in a local spelling bee, usually organized by a local newspaper. Although the competition is titled "National", spellers from Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Guam, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa have entered the competition. Only two people from outside the fifty U.S. states have won the competition – the first from Puerto Rico in 1975, and the second from Jamaica in 1998.

The competition has been televised live in the U.S. since 1994 on ESPN, a Disney-owned cable-television network dedicated to broadcasting and producing sports-related programming. Beginning in 2006, the ABC network, also owned by Disney, broadcast the final rounds during a live two-hour timeslot. In 2011, the final rounds returned to ESPN because of a scheduling conflict with that year's NBA Finals.

The competition is primarily an oral competition conducted in elimination rounds until only one speller remains. The first round consists of a 25-word written test, the remaining rounds are oral spelling tests. The competition has been declared a tie three times, in 1950, 1957 and 1962. As of 2012, 47 champions have been girls and 41 have been boys.

Ten of the last fourteen winners (from 1999 to 2012) have been Indian Americans, reflecting the recent dominance of students of this community in this competition. Indian Americans make up less than one percent of the U.S. population. Snigdha Nandipati was the latest Indian-American to win the competition.