Local spelling champs on the high pressure world of spelling bees

By Evan Dawson,

Published June 27, 2024 at 4:19 PM EDT

Six smiling people sit at a table in a radio talk studio: a young man on the left of the near side of the table has short blonde hair and glasses and is wearing a red and orange striped polo shirt; the woman in the center has long blonde hair and is wearing a pink t-shirt; the man on the left has short blonde hair and is wearing a blue and white striped polo shirt and jeans; the man on the far side of the table is wearing a baseball cap and a green polo shirt; the young man to his right has short hair and is wearing a black t-shirt with a blue and white design; the man at the end of the table has short dark hair and is wearing headphones, a blue button down shirt and jeans. — (foreground) Ryan Creary, Michelle Creary, Kevin Creary, and (background) Antti Seppo and Elias Seppo on "Connections with Evan Dawson" on Thursday, June 27, 2024

A Finger Lakes student advanced to the Scripps National Spelling Bee finals this year.

Penn Yan Middle School student Ryan Creary outlasted some of the favorites before getting knocked out on the word “apamin” (We don’t know what that word is either.).

We talk about the high pressure spelling bee world, tricks for spelling difficult words, the brain-numbing qualities of auto-correct, and more.

Our guests:

Ryan Creary, rising freshman at Penn Yan High School who was a finalist in this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee
Kevin Creary, Ryan's dad
Michelle Creary, Ryan's mom
Elias Seppo, rising freshman at Brighton High School who competed in a Scripps Regional Spelling Bee this year
Antti Seppo, Elias' dad
Tim Banach, finalist in the 1997 Scripps National Spelling Bee