Jacques Bailly, the Scripps National Spelling Bee’s head pronouncer, plays a vital role by reading the words that guide the Bee’s champions to success. This year, Bruhat Soma emerged as the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion following an intense tiebreaker between the top two spellers in the competition.
According to Bailly, “hard work” is essential to becoming a champion. Twelve-year-old Bruhat was officially crowned on Thursday night after correctly spelling 29 words in 90 seconds during a spell-off.
Having witnessed numerous champions over the Bee’s nearly 100-year history, Bailly was once a Scripps National Spelling Bee champion himself before earning a Ph.D. in ancient philosophy from Cornell University.
Scripps Spelling Bee
Florida 7th grader wins 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee after ‘spell-off’
8:20 PM, May 30, 2024
Bailly has been a familiar face to Bee fans, expressing his joy in celebrating all contestants and witnessing the Bee’s growth. In recent years, there have been 11 million entries at the school level.
“It’s like the Olympics, the records keep falling,” Bailly remarked. “I just love words, I love learning. I love that the mission of the Bee is to stimulate the kids’ imagination,” he added.
The judges are incredibly supportive of the competitors. Bruhat, the 2024 champion, mentioned that he had prepared for a spell-off just in case.
“I was quite nervous, but I had been practicing spell-offs for the past year, at least six months,” he shared.
Bailly emphasized the importance of continuous reading in becoming a proficient speller. “All of these words are in use. Read a lot of nonfiction… and observe when you visit a restaurant,” Bailly advised. “The menu items are all Spelling Bee words.”