How can my child participate in a spelling bee if we don't live in the Albany Times Union area?

Our bee is open to all homeschooled students in grades 4 through 8 who reside in the nine county circulation area served by the Albany Times Union: Albany, Columbia, Montgomery, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie, Warren and Washington Counties.

Around the country, there are hundreds of other sponsors for regional bees leading up to the Scripps National Spelling Bee around the country. Most sponsors are newspapers.

Call local newspapers near you and ask if they sponsors a regional spelling bee. If it's a large newspaper, ask for their "Newspapers in Education" department. You could also try searching the electronic archives of your local newspaper. If they've sponsored bees in the past, they surely published articles covering it. In some cases, your local bee might have been sponsored by a community organization rather than a newspaper, but, once again, searching the archives of your local newspaper may turn up the name of the sponsor. Your friendly local public librarian will surely be happy to help you track down that information if you're having trouble.

Some states have a sponsor with a bee that covers the entire state, but most regional sponsors cover only a part of the state. For example, there are close to 20 sponsors bees each in states such as Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. By contrast, Maine has one sponsor bee that covers the entire state.

Once you find the name of a newspaper or organization that sponsors a spelling bee for spellers in your area, ask how a homeschool student may qualify to participate in their bee. All sponsors provide such arrangements, though the exact details of the "qualification structure" may vary from place to place.

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