Some of Kalamazoo County’s best spellers will be going head to head in the 2025 Kalamazoo Regional Spelling Bee presented by MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette on March 15. The spelling bee will be held at 1 p.m.

Each year, the Scripps National Spelling Bee invites the Sandpoint Waldorf School students, among other schools in the region, to showcase their talents in a series of spelling bees.

After being the top finisher in a longtime, well-established regional competition, Daniela Lucia Pappalardo might have felt compelled to celebrate by singing a tonada or two. “I read a lot, so I have a wide ranging vocabulary,

Regional Spelling Bee crowned its 2025 champion recently. Chev Diondrei Yu Bondoc, a sixth grader from Howell Middle School, secured the win with the word “emancipatory.”

The three students, ages 11, 12 and 14, beat out 22 other spellers Monday to win spots in the national spelling competition in May.

Brizuela, an eighth grader at Reid Middle School, is advancing to this year's Regional Spelling Bee along with 16 other students from across the Northeast.

Eighth-grade studetn wins Cascade County Spelling Bee