Spelling Bee buzzing on

The Spelling Bee winners from Milestone International School in Dhaka.Photo: STAR

The Daily Star Spelling Bee yesterday visited Milestone International School in the capital and Rangpur Cadet College.
Organised by champs21.com and powered by Horlicks, the contest at the two educational institutions saw eight spellers qualify through to the second round -- the divisional round.
From Milestone, Shafiul and Rafsan of class nine and Syeda Benazir of class 10 crossed the first-round hurdle. From Rangpur Cadet College, Sadat Md Shahriar Shamim, Ahmed Anjum Aziz and Saif Nakib of class 10, Chowdhury Junaid Alam of class eight and Habibul Islam of class nine made it to the divisional round.
A minimum of 3,000 spellers will qualify for the divisional round, which starts on March 17.
Students are also being encouraged to play the game online, which can be found at www.champs21.com. They can play as many times as they can and the top scorers will get to the second round. The first round (online) will end on March 10.
The top 72 spellers will get the chance to become TV reality show stars as the TV round of the Spelling Bee competition will be aired on Channel i. The top three spellers will get Tk 5 lakh (1st prize), Tk 1 lakh (2nd prize) and Tk 50,000 (3rd prize). The champion will also get an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington DC with a parent and a teacher of his/her choosing to participate in the American Spelling Bee competition.