Spelling Bee Rules

1. Champions participating in the Western Pennsylvania championship round must not have passed beyond the eighth grade on or before February 1, 2007. They must not have reached their 16th birthday on or before the date of the national finals, May 31, 2007.
2. The Western Pennsylvania finals will be an oral competition, with elimination on a "miss-and-out" basis in the traditional Spelling Bee manner.
3. In the semi-final round, the five remaining contestants from each semi-final will advance to the finals.
4. Contestants shall step forward and compete in alphabetical order for the semi-final rounds and by random selection for the final round.
5. The word list used in the Western Pennsylvania finals is made up of representative words from the Paideia booklet and other words selected from Webster's Third Unabridged Dictionary.
6. In competition, after the pronouncer gives the contestant a word, the contestant may also pronounce the word before spelling it, after spelling it, or not at all.
7. A contestant may request the pronouncer to re-pronounce a word, define it, or use it in a sentence. The pronouncer shall grant the request until the judges agree that the word has been made reasonably clear to the contestant. Judges may disqualify any contestant who ignores a request to start spelling. The speller will not be granted a request for a root word.
8. If, inadvertently, no definition of a homonym is given by the pronouncer, the correct spelling of either word shall be accepted as correct. When a speller has been given the definition of a homonym, the speller must spell the word that was defined.
9. It is acceptable for a speller to begin spelling a word, start over and change the letters.
10. No speller shall be disqualified for failing to include a capital letter or such punctuation marks as hyphens and apostrophies.
11. Upon missing the spelling of a word, a contestant immediately drops out of the contest, except as provided in rule 12. The next word on the pronouncer’s list is given to the next contestant.
12. If none of the contestants remaining in the Bee at the start of a round spells a word correctly during the round, all shall remain in the competition.
13. If only one of the contestants remaining in the Bee at the start of a round spells a word correctly during that round, the contestant shall be given an opportunity to spell the next word on the list. If the contestant succeeds in correctly spelling the new word, the contestant shall be declared the champion. Otherwise, all the contestants remaining in the Bee at the start of the round shall remain in the competition.
14. Any question relating to the spelling of a word must be referred to the judges immediately after the round that the dispute occurred. No protest can be entertained unless such protest is made before the start of a new round.
15. Any participant receiving verbal or nonverbal cues from the audience will be disqualified.
16. This competition is open to all children in the region regardless of affiliation.
17. Judges are in complete control of the Bee. Their decision shall be final on all questions. Judges will use Webster’s Third New International Dictionary as their final authority.

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