- ABC News
- March 11, 2016
Most regional spelling bee winners receive a dictionary, maybe a trophy, and a trip to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in May. The winner of Saturday's Middle Tennessee contest? Those prizes, plus a Tennessee Titans game ball. The Titans are rolling out the red carpet in sponsoring this year's Nashville-area competition, becoming the first pro franchise to fund a speller's trip to the national event. In early January, The Tennessean newspaper reported that the local spelling bee had no sponsor to send a student to Washington, D.C., where the national competition is held. The Titans responded. "Our ownership group saw it and said, 'We cannot let the spelling bee not happen. Make this happen,'" said Susanna Nickell, a community relations assistant for the Titans. "We called Scripps, and in about two or three days, we turned it around. A lot of schools didn't think there would be a sponsor." Saturday's bee will have a sporting element to it. Cheerleaders...