Cleveland, OH
Remembering Marie C. Bolden, Cleveland’s unsung heroine of the spelling bee: Justice B. Hill
CLEVELAND, Ohio — I can’t imagine the stress felt by Dev Shah, the 14-year-old who won the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee. On a grand stage a week ago, Dev spelled “aegagrus,” “probouleutic” and “zwitterion,” not words you’d necessarily find in a boy’s vocabulary.
His winning word, “psammophile,” was complex; it was also abstruse. And it showed how the spelling bee has evolved since Marie C. Bolden, a 14-year-old Clevelander, won the first bee in 1908.