Scripps National Spelling Bee 2023: Meet the 7 N.J. kids competing for $50k

Seven New Jersey contestants will compete against 225 other kids in the annual

Seven New Jersey contestants will compete against 225 other kids in the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee from Tuesday, May 30 to Thursday, June 1. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)AP

The 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee kicked off on Tuesday, May 30 for its 95th competition.

Seven contestants from New Jersey will compete for the $50,000 prize and the coveted Scripps Cup as part of this year's 231 spellers.

During the annual event from May 30 to June 1, the kids will go head to head in four rounds: the preliminaries, quarterfinals, semifinals and finals.

The contenders ranging from age 9 to 14 represent each state nationwide as well as the District of Columbia, U.S. territories and countries outside the 50 states. These include the Bahamas, Canada, Germany, Ghana, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico.

This year's group includes 41 returning spellers from the 2022 competition and 49 who have competed in prior years. Also, two finalists from the 2022 competition are making a comeback: Kirsten Tiffany Santos from Houston (speller 200) and Surya Kapu from Salt Lake City (speller 213), who tied in fifth place.

This also will be the sixth time competing for Akash Vukoti (speller 207) from San Angelo, Texas, breaking a record for the competition. Fourteen spellers are competing in their third Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The most contestants in the spelling bee come from Texas with 21 kids competing. Ohio and California follow with the second highest number of kids competing with 15 each, and Illinois has the third highest number of competitors with 14.

Here are the seven contestants from New Jersey in the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee:

Other than the $50,000 prize and Scripps Cup trophy, the champion will get a commemorative medal, a $2,500 cash prize and reference library from Merriam-Webster, $400 of reference works from Encyclopædia Britannica and $2,000 Scholastic Dollars donated to the school the champion chooses from Scholastic.

Two New Jersey competitors have taken home the Scripps Cup in the competition's history. The champions were Katharine Close from Asbury Park in 2006 and Shruthika Padhy from Cherry Hill in 2019.

Close's winning word was "Ursprache," meaning a parent language reconstructed from later languages. Padhy won with the word "erysipelas," which is defined as "an acute febrile disease associated with intense edematous local inflammation of the skin and subcutaneous tissues caused by a hemolytic streptococcus," according to Merriam-Webster.

The first Scripps National Spelling Bee took place in 1925. Frank Neuhauser was the first Bee champion, an 11-year-old from Louisville, Kentucky, who won $500 and a visit with President Calvin Coolidge.

To watch the New Jersey contestants compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, you can stream the competition or watch it with cable.

You can stream the preliminaries, quarterfinals and semifinals on ION Plus, Bounce XL and spellingbee.com. You also can watch the cable broadcasts of the semifinals and live finals on ION and Bounce.

Check here to see which channel has ION in your area and the schedule for each round.

Clarification: There are seven spellers from New Jersey in the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee. However, Sandhana Rajesh from Egg Harbor Township represents Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as broadcaster WHYY is sponsoring her.

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Scripps National Spelling Bee 2023: Meet the 7 N.J. kids competing for $50k