Oak Grove Elementary Hosts Spelling Bee

Oak Grove Elementary hosted its annual spelling bee Friday and the students were eager to participate. The Brownfield Middle School saw a bit of a decline in participants, with less than 10 students signing up for the spelling bee. Oak Grove saw several students in attendance with their families sitting in the back to support. Students spelled words that most adults would find difficult until there was one student left standing. Emma Martinez placed first in the spelling bee, Alexander Williams was the runner-up and Eva Peters-Froese rounded out the top three. Martinez will go on to compete in the district spelling bee. She will compete against winners of the other schools' spelling bees, such as Adrianna Contreras, for the title of best speller in the district. Martinez will try to follow in the footsteps of Oak Grove’s last champion, Juan Lira, who finished in first place at the district spelling bee and sixth in the regional competition. Brownfield ISD has continued to host spelling bee competitions despite a lot of schools around the nation abandoning spelling bees due to the events consuming class time. Despite the drop in spelling bees around the nation, the last national spelling bee was one of the most popular yet, as it drew over 9.2 million viewers. With the rise of streaming, the spelling bee has become more readily available to watch and according to prnewswire.com, it is only getting more popular. Viewing of the finals was 60% higher than in 2022. The semifinals on May 31 reached 4.9 million viewers – an increase of 58% over 2022 and the highest audience ever for the semifinals for the second year in a row. Streaming added significantly to the overall audience. Bee programming was watched for nearly 5.6 million hours, up double digits from last year.