The Scripps National Spelling Bee returns this week and a 13-year-old from St. Michael Catholic School in Plain Township will be part of the competition.
After 15 years in Oxon Hill, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC, the bee will be held May 26-28 at DAR Constitution Hall, near the National Mall and White House.
Competing as The Canton Repository’s representative is Tommy Schervish, a seventh grader who won the Repository’s Regional Final Spelling Bee in March at Kent State University at Stark.
Tommy, the son of Tom and Sarah Schervish of Perry Township, came out on top of this year’s regional bee after finishing second in 2025. He correctly spelled eight words to claim the championship: avatar, extinguish, continuous, existential, nitrate, dissemble, durango and cybernetics.
He will be speller No. 166 among the 247 youngsters in the Scripps competition. Fifteen spellers are from Ohio. Spellers in the field range in age from 9 to 15.
Stark County speller ready for 2026 bee
Tommy is excited to take the stage and admits being a little nervous.
“I’m feeling confident and really excited about it,” he said. “I’m glad that I know I put in the hard work to win the regional spelling bee and get to the national bee.”
He has been studying the roots and rules of words as well as going over definitions.
“I think I got a good chance if I just try my best, stick to what I know and don’t get too nervous,” he said.
Another speller from the region also will be competing. Esther Lin, a 13-year-old eighth grader from Revere Middle School in Bath Township, will represent the Akron Beacon Journal. Esther will be speller No. 164.
Spellers this year will compete in preliminary rounds from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 26. They each will face a spelling word, and if they correctly spell it, they immediately will receive a vocabulary word as the event’s second round. They’ll hear the word and then select the correct definition.
Spellers who successfully make it through the first two rounds then will take a written test at 4:30 p.m. May 26 at the nearby JW Marriott Washington. Spellers will get 24 spelling words and six vocabulary words. Their scores will determine who will move on to the May 27 quarterfinal rounds from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. The semifinals will run 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. May 27.
About 12 spellers remaining in the competition at the end of Wednesday’s rounds will move on to the May 28 finals, which begin at 8 p.m. Thursday.
All spelling events other than the written test will be at DAR Constitution Hall.
All rounds of the bee will be televised. The May 26 first and second rounds and the May 27 quarterfinals can be viewed on Scripps Sports Network. The May 27 semifinals and the May 28 finals will be on Ion TV. Visit spellingbee.com/watch to enter your ZIP code for instructions on how to watch the bee in a specific area.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Good luck. Stark County’s top speller competing in National Spelling Bee
Reporting by Canton Repository / The Repository
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