Anchorage Daily News

OVERHEAD OF ISSUES WITH CURRENT ADN ALASKA STATE SPELLING BEE COORDINATOR JOY GUEST & THE ALASKA STATE SPELLING BEE:
— Coordinator and/​or ADN failure to respond to a scholarship donor; a Professor intended to donate money to support the State Champion’s travels, hotel fare, and stay in Washington D.C. However, Joy Guest and/​or ADN failed to respond to the donor, ultimately affecting community children.
— Coordinator mistreatment of community members intending to help with, give advice on spelling bees, including a
2-​time former ADN Alaska State Spelling Bee Champion
— Coordinator hanging up on individuals interested in discussing and helping improve the spelling bee
— Coordinator not willing to entertain phone calls from individuals about spelling bees due to «her real job and deadlines»
— Coordinator fabrication of resume, claiming she is a «Licensed Realtor» (
) when in fact, she is a «Licensed Realtor’s Assistant and Buyer Specialist» (
)
— Coordinator and her selected volunteers having 0 knowledge of material used for the State Spelling Bee (Spell It) or its 1,150+ words
— Little to no knowledge of Scripps rules and guidelines
— Breaking Scripps rules and guidelines
— Refusing to give students the «language of origin»
— Pronouncing incorrectly and imprecisely
— Pronouncer unknowledgeable about diacritical marks and pronunciation keys
— Coordinator and pronouncer skipping words compiled and ordered by Scripps too liberally
— Difficultly inconsistent within rounds, due to excessive skipping around by pronouncer (each word and page increases in difficulty, hence why there should not be such liberal skipping)
— Running out of Scripps Spell It words by just the 2^nd round due to liberal skipping, lack of knowledge about Spell It! and Spell It! words
— Lack of utilization of «difficult» words studied BY students IN the Spell It guide, due to coordinator and pronouncer ignorance towards Spell It and Spell It! words. Coordinator and pronouncer incorrectly assess what is difficult.
— By the third round, progression into «Additional Words,» which are intended by Scripps to be «end-​of-​bee» challenge words IF/​WHEN all Spell It words are utilized via competition
— Coordinator «tries to stay away from spelling bee stuff as much as possible»; unwilling to learn about Spell It booklet and learn Spell It words
—–
INTRODUCTORY NOTE ON SCRIPPS FORMAT OF STATE/​DISTRICT BEE AND CORRESPONDING MATERIAL:
Spell It is «the official list of study words for 2014 district, county, city, regional and state spelling bees» (
by Merriam-​Webster). It is the official word book written and distributed by Scripps. As the official Spelling Bee Spell It website (
) states, the «purpose [of the spelling bee] is to help students improve their spelling, increase their vocabulary, learn concepts, and develop correct English usage that will help them all their lives.»
Scripps states that «local spelling bee officials use word lists generated by the Scripps National Spelling Bee. These lists include many words that appear in the current edition of Spell It! as well as some ‘end-​of-​bee’ words,» which are separated from the Spell It words and put under the header Additional Words near the end. These end-​of-​bee words are not given to students, as they often function as tie-​breakers once bees have exhausted all the Spell It words.
M Hessenauer, a 3-​time National speller whom placed 3^rd in the NSB, is an experienced pronouncer and judge for the regional level bee, as he has volunteered throughout high school and college. He states about utilizing the Scripps mandated source that «using a booklet allows spellers to set a defined goal, such as learning one category of words per day. It would be much more difficult to prepare for a spelling bee without a word source. I would expect Spell It to be used in a bee at the district or regional level. Using a standard word source eliminates many complaints about fairness of word difficulty. Every word is fair game when the words are known beforehand.»
T Mahoney represented Wisconsin and placed 15^th in the National Spelling Bee. He then proceeded to work for numerous school and regional spelling bees from 2007 – 2010, and in 2007, 2008, and 2010, he worked for National Spelling Bee. Mahoney also stated that he «would expect a regional/​district-​level bee coordinator and those involved to be aware of the Spell It booklet and its words,» particularly because it is a) created by Scripps for distribution and use at the regional/​district level and b) made publicly available to coordinators, parents, and spellers online and through their schools.
(cannot post rest of complaint, see rest at complaints dot com or complaintsboard dot com)

Who cares about ADN. Does anyone even read a newspaper anymore? Eek! Methinks not.

Articles days or weeks old. Mediocre editorials. Letters that prove the general population’s lack of critical reasoning and propensity toward ignorance.
Content continues to decline. They now charge for wedding announcements (tacky) and obituaries (tackier). The articles they reprint from America are already weeks old and are mostly irrelevant to the Anchorage community. One often leaves with the impression that the editors are neither from Anchorage nor very interested in understanding life in Anchorage from the perspective of locals.
After the Times closed, the lack of competition allowed ADN to offer an inferior product with impunity. It’s 15 years later and we are still without a reputable community forum. Our loss.