When they’re not practicing their archery skills, engaging audiences with their impressive public speaking abilities, exploring Arizona or rescuing birds and reptiles, the state’s top 27 spellers, ranging in age from 9-14, are studying words like ‘vivisepulture’ and ‘ursprache’ in preparation for the 2013 AEF Arizona Spelling Bee. This year’s annual AEF Arizona Spelling Bee will be held Saturday in Phoenix.

WASHINGTON - The winner of the spelling bee sounded as if he'd rather be at a math Olympiad. Thirteen-year-old Evan O'Dorney of Danville, Calif., breezed through the Scripps National Spelling Bee with barely a hitch Thursday night, taking the title, the trophy and the prizes in a competition that he confessed really wasn't his favorite.

State senators voted Monday to put a roadblock in the path of state officials who want to talk to customers and constituents in their native languages.

April 14, 2005

Cheer for your hometown contestant, and test your own spelling skills during the hour-long presentation filled with highlights of this year’s Arizona Spelling Bee. The show airs at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 17, and 11 a.m. Sunday, April 29 on Eight, Arizona PBS.

Today’s column is about spelling, a topic that has been much on the minds of folks here at your East Valley Paragraph Factory. More precisely, the topic is “Spell Check,’’ one of the modern conveniences ushered in by the Computer Age.

Ashley Gilmore’s little yellow book is dog-eared, torn and tattered, marked with red ink and fluorescent marking.

WASHINGTON - For the first time in its 79-year history, the National Spelling Bee - the original "reality TV" - will go prime time for next month's drama-filled finals.

November 16, 2004

Centennial Elementary School sixth-grader Gabrielle Hester is the winner of the Higley Unified School District Spelling Bee. Gabrielle outspelled her competitors in the Jan. 25 competition at the Higley Center for Performing Arts. Higley’s Spelling Bee went 12 rounds.

For their kids, they struggled with the word "thought," listening to the foreign pronunciation.

A federal judge agreed Tuesday to give lawmakers five more weeks to adopt funding for English learner programs - but with a penalty if they let that deadline slip.U.S. District Judge Raner Collins accepted arguments by attorneys for Republican legislative leaders that they cannot meet his original deadline to have funding in place. That deadline was actually last Tuesday.

Each morning as they walk to Lowell Elementary School, children pass Spanish signs that reflect the homes most come from. Across the street from the Mesa school sits the brightly-painted La Estrella Carniceria y Panaderia, selling Mexican breads and chorizo.

Tom Horne’s seen this train coming for a while now. He’s been trying to derail it, but things aren’t looking too promising at the moment.

The nation’s top education official visited a Mesa charter school Monday to promote reauthorization of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The nation’s top education official visited a Mesa charter school Monday to promote reauthorization of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings will visit a Mesa charter school known for beating the odds in a low-income neighborhood.

V-O-U-C-H-S-A-F-E. It’s a word author Barrie Trinkle will never forget. It’s the word that put her into the history books.

Attorney General Terry Goddard gave the go-ahead Monday for state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne to enforce new guidelines on when students can enroll in bilingual education programs.

“Why is it that only Hispanics have a hard time learning English? I don’t hear; ‘press 3 to continue in Japanese,’ ‘press 4 to continue in Chinese,’ or ‘press 5 to continue in Hindu.’ The immigrants of these countries don’t seem to have a hard time learning English. I see the children of these immigrants winning spelling bee contests all over America. English is much closer, language-wise, to Spanish than it is to these other languages.”

Love is in the air at Mesa’s monthly Second Friday art walk 6 to 10 p.m. Feb. 8. Downtown Mesa’s historic Main Street comes alive with the Valentine theme “Sweethearts on Main” where attendees are encouraged to get out that zoot suit or flapper dress they’ve been hiding in the back of the closet and participate in a dance and costume competition while they rekindle romance over a dinner at one of downtown’s many restaurants.

That’s ‘YOUR’ money their donating folks and I, as a Salt River client and entrapped customer of a monopoly, am insulted by it. Personally, I wouldn’t give two cents to attend a Super Bowl game, but that’s besides the point. The City of Glendale has trickled away millions of $’s of their tax payers hard earned monies on sporting events and venues, unfortunately that’s their problem. But I sure don’t relish the fact that a public utility is using my hard-earned cash to help finance a sporting event supported by a minority of the utility’s paying customers. Next time SRP wants to raise it’s rates, give a second thought to where the money may be spent. Gee, I wonder if it has anything to do with a SRP executive being on the Super Bowl Committee?

Someone tell me if I’m not reasoning properly here; I just viewed the 9 p.m. news on FOX-10 where one of the stories had to do with Sandusky’s recording of riotousness and innocence sent from his cell in ‘Stalag 17.’ The two newscasters were both complaining about reporting the story, thinking they had heard the last of Sandusky. Correct me if I’m wrong but, aren’t the folks who report the news, (media), responsible for it’s content and presentation? I’ll bet there isn’t one viewer who was the least bit interested in Sandusky’s boo-hooing nor the report of Jordan Van Der Sloot effectively sewing his oats in a Peruvian prison.

Imagine for a moment that you relocated your family to Japan two years ago, and your elementary school-age child came home with his or her best grade ever on a science test — one that was still lower than his or her Japanese-born and raised classmate and best friend. Would you be disappointed? Would you want to pull your child out of that school?