winners meet the president

The Daily Star Spelling Bee Champion Sunjack Jesun, right, first runner-up Sakib Aleem, left, and second runner-up Arshiyan Alam spend sometime with President Abdul Hamid yesterday at the Bangabhaban. They got the opportunity to meet the head of state by securing the top three positions in this year's contest held for school goers of class-VI to class-X. Photo: Star

The Daily Star Spelling Bee Competition winners met President Abdul Hamid yesterday in Bangabhaban.
The president spent some time with this year's champion Sunjack Jesun from Saint Joseph's Higher Secondary School, Dhaka, first runner-up Sakib Aleem from Academia, Dhaka, and second runner-up Arshiyan Alam from Sunnydale, Dhaka.
The winning students were accompanied by their parents, the Editor of The Daily Star Mahfuz Anam, Channel i Head of News Shykh Seraj and Champs21.com -- organizers of the competition -- CEO Russell T Ahmed.
The president said that there was no alternative to learning English language while competing on the global stage. He also said that the Spelling Bee competition would help encourage students to improve their language skills. He hoped the winners would be future leaders of the country and thanked the organisers for taking the timely initiative.
The Spelling Bee competition was originally started in the United States in 1926, and every US president traditionally has met almost every spelling bee champion, during their term, to encourage the young generation.
The organisers have arranged for the winners from Bangladesh to take a trip to Washington DC, US -- the city where the competition originated from.
All three winners felt very elated to have met the president and for him to have appreciated their hard work and dedication.
This year's competition started in January through an online registration process. More than 2 lakh students of class VI – X from all over the country participated in it. The number of contestants was reduced to 1,900 who later participated in on-stage elimination rounds held in seven divisional cities. Only 72 top performers were chosen to proceed to the TV round. The champion speller emerged from the last of them in front of a capacity audience attending the programme held in the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre earlier this month.