Fourteen year old Amanuel Gemechis of George S. Mickelson Middle School in Brookings recently won the South Dakota State Spelling Bee at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell.
South Dakota Education Secretary Joe Graves was on hand. “Spelling has been a standard part of the curriculum since, you know, colonial days”, said Graves.
“Now, because of all the technology and the spell checks, it isn’t as important as it was.” He continued. “But the truth is, it’s still hugely important for mental training, memorization, and all those kinds of aspects.”
Graves says if a person struggles with spelling, it makes it more difficult to write. “And so if you’re good at it, it just, it flows much more naturally. It’s very much like learning your addition tables, your subtraction tables, your multiplication tables”, he said. “If you don’t know those things, everything you do above it is hard. It’s the same with spelling.”
Graves congratulated Gemechis who’ll represent South Dakota in the 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington later this spring.