Three young girls represented Arizona on the national stage at the longest-running spelling competition in the country. MORE ⬇️
"Very happy to hear all those people cheering on for me and rooting for me. So, I hope I can make it far," said Karen Opoku-Appoh, a spelling bee competitor from Marana.
Preliminary rounds of the Scripps National Spelling Bee took place Tuesday in Washington D.C., 14-year-old Karen Opoku-Appoh from Marana, outside of Tucson, spoke to ABC15 over Zoom about how her experience is going so far.The second round was multiple choice, on the meaning of various words."C-Y-C-L-I-C-A-L... Cyclical," said Opoku-Appoh.Opoku-Appoh says she feels relieved,"I was kind of, like, nervous in the beginning.
Opoku-Appoh is one of two Arizona students who have advanced to the quarterfinals. She has been studying since December, two hours every day after school, to get to this point. "There are like different languages in which the word comes from, like French, Italian, Latin. So, like, for example... Latin words, when you hear the sound 'f,' you would spell it with a 'ph,'" said Opoku-Appoh.The third competitor, 13-year-old Tazbah Spruhan of Fort Defiance, within the Navajo Nation, came up short. But she says it's more than just a competition to her.
"The whole point of wearing my Navajo clothes is not only to just represent myself and my culture but also, I think to show people that we're still here," said Spruhan."Show people on the reservation that spelling is something that we can do," said Tazbah.
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