2 Tampa Bay spellers to compete in Scripps National Spelling Bee

State of p-l-a-y: Spellers, who competed in local and regional rounds in early April, will compete live in a broadcasted competition over three days.

• Last year the broadcast drew over 7.5 million viewers, the largest television audience since 2015.

Zoom in: Tampa Bay has two of Florida's nine smarties.

• Bruhat Soma, 11, attends Turner Bartels K-8 School in Tampa. He enjoys playing basketball, football and Ping-Pong.
• Dev Shah, 14, a student at Morgan Fitzgerald Middle School in Largo, previously competed in 2019 and 2021. He placed in the top 100 in both competitions. His hobbies include playing tennis and Wordle and watching historical fiction movies.

Flashback: Florida hasn't had a Scripps Bee champion since Tampa's Nupur Lala won in 1999.

📺 How to watch: The Bee will air on ION and Bounce. Viewers can visit spellingbee.com/watch and enter a ZIP code for specific viewer instructions.