First Annual Spelling Bee

The First Annual Bengali Spelling Bee was organized in Coppell Public Library on July 20, 2003. There were three groups - Group A for those kids who have only 1-2 years of language exposure in school, Group B for those who have 2-3 years exposure and Group C for those with 3-4 years exposure. There was a Review Board for each group. Group A board members were Ruma Sarkar, Basab Chatterjee and Biman Maitra. Group B board consisted of Anita Banerjee, Sajal Das and Rupa Mukherjee. Group C board had Aparna Saha, Sima Sarkar and Sudip Mukherjee as the members.

The following were the participants in the competition.

Group A

Shushmita Hashem

Ipsha Banerjee

Sukanya Basu

Subhodeep Mukherjee

Sumit Paul

Mihi Ghoshdastidar

Arpana Ghosh

Sayon Seng

Sam Seal

Monami Dutta

Mitali Mathur

Sajan Sarkar

Doyel Das

Natasha Roy

Group B

Manisha Sarker

Spandana Maitra

Sayon Sengupta

Arman Sarkar

Purujit Chatterjee

Meghna Saha

Group C

Debomita Bhattacharya

Somak Das

Arijit Chakraborty

Rohini Mitra

Ritodhi Chatterjee

Champion

Manisha Sarkar [second from left]

Lily Foundation thanks Ms. Sipra Chatterjee of the DFW Temple School and Mr. Debdas Bhattacharya of Antorik School for their inspirational support and efforts to define the structure of the tests and all the Review Board members for their patient and encouraging conversation with the kids. Finally, the Foundation is immensely thankful to all participating children, who wer really our VIPs that day.

As for next year, we want to have your suggestions for improvement and your whole-hearted support for the event.

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Editor's note: Apology is in place for any errors. For correction, write to jpsarkar@hotmail.com