Lexington girl is the third sibling in her family to qualify for National Spelling Bee

Karla Ward
3 min read
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A Lexington girl who competed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee Saturday is part of a family of powerhouse spellers who are not new to the prestigious competition.

Lindsay DeVore, 11, is the youngest member of her family and the third sister to qualify for the National Spelling Bee.

Her eldest sister, Ashley, who turns 17 next week, competed in the National Spelling Bee in 2018, and her sister Lauren, 15, qualified for the national competition last year but was unable to compete because the event was canceled.

All three girls are homeschooled through a program called Classical Conversations, in which students attend classes one day a week and learn at home the rest of the time.

“The program’s pretty rigorous,” said their mom, Kim DeVore.

She said it puts a significant emphasis on memory work, and students practice public speaking skills every week by giving a presentation to their class. All of that has been an asset to the DeVores as they compete in spelling bees, Kim DeVore said.

She said the bee isn’t “about just being smart.”

“It’s about working hard toward something maybe you’re not good at,” she said.

This year’s National Spelling Bee looks a little different from previous years. The first rounds are being completed virtually and began Saturday with preliminaries on ESPN3.

To maintain the integrity of the competition, Kim DeVore said each student was sent a temporary computer to use during the online event, and a proctor assigned by the bee was sent to the family’s home during Lindsay’s competition time.

The finals will be held in person July 8 and will be broadcast on ESPN 2.

Lindsay qualified for the Scripps National Spelling Bee by winning the regional spelling bee sponsored by the Bluegrass Literacy Project.

Lindsay correctly spelled the word “hypertrophy” during competition Saturday morning, but she was then knocked out of the bee by a new facet of the competition, which required students to choose the correct definition of a word during their time on the virtual stage. Lindsay was given the word “racketeer” for that question.

“It was fun,” she said of the competition.

And since she just completed fifth grade, she has three more years to continue in the program. Lindsay said she’s going to keep working toward qualifying for the National Spelling Bee again.

“I’m going to take, like, one day off,” she said, and then she’ll be back at it, practicing words again.

Lindsay said she spends about an hour and a half each day preparing for the spelling bee, cycling through a list of 4,000 words.

“She studies 300 words a day, every day,” Kim DeVore said.

She said the family has been impressed with the Scripps National Spelling Bee and would love to see more Kentucky schools participate.

“We’ve seen what the bee does with the students,” she said. “We really like how they emphasize hard work.”

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