Thursday's Internet Edition, 09:18 PM, March 11, 2010.

And with new demands being placed on schools and their students, it’s questionable whether it will ever come back.

Roane has already lost 14 days of school to the severe winter this year, with four more days cut short by the weather.

Roane Superintendent of Schools Steve Goffreda said the decision to cancel this year’s competition was made to allow teachers to focus on the new state curriculum and preparations for standardized testing.

“I’ve been involved as a principal and a parent, and there may be more productive ways to use kids’ time than having them memorize words they may never use the rest of their lives,” according to Goffreda, whose daughter was a county spelling champion years ago.

In the past, each school with students in grades 4-8 has held a spelling bee, with the winners advancing to county competition.

Goffreda said schools are still permitted to hold their own spelling bees. There just will not be a county competition.

“At this point, it’s disruptive to pull students into town with all the time we’ve lost,” he said of the countywide event.

In past years, the county spelling champion and runner-up advanced to a regional spelling bee that involves 25 counties and is sponsored by the Charleston Daily Mail. The regional spelling bee is set for this Saturday in Charleston.

Winners from that event advance to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

Roane pulled out of the Daily Mail event a few years ago when counties had to start paying a fee to participate.

Daily Mail newsroom manager Tina Taylor said three counties, including Calhoun and Jackson, dropped out when the fee was implemented about three years ago,

Counties must pay $84 per participating school. In Roane County, that amounts to $420.

She said the total cost is $99 per school, but the newspaper has sponsors that cover part of the cost.

“It’s quite expensive when you do a bee,” according to Taylor, who said expenses include travel and lodging costs for the winners to attend the national event.

She said the cost is small for counties with only one participating school, like Clay. For others, it amounts to quite a bit.

“Kanawha County pays a lot of money for its schools to participate,” she said.

Taylor said the Huntington Herald-Dispatch used to sponsor a competition for nine counties, with the Daily Mail taking care of 16 counties. When the Huntington newspaper quit a few years ago, she said the Daily Mail took on all of those counties as well.

Goffreda said Roane pulled out of the event when it became “cost-prohibitive.”

“It just seemed like it wasn’t worth it for what we were getting,” he said.

Winners from Roane County still may participate in a regional spelling bee sponsored by the eight-county Regional Education Service Agency (RESA V) in Parkersburg.

That event takes place in May and includes two divisions, one for 5th/6th and another for 7th/8th grades. It is open to students from Calhoun, Jackson, Pleasants, Ritchie, Roane, Tyler, Wirt and Wood counties, although not all counties participate each year. There is no further competition beyond the one in Parkersburg.

Goffreda said the idea of a county competition could be revisited for next year.

“We may look at the whole idea of spelling bees,” the superintendent said. “Memorizing lists of words, some of which are archaic, is not necessarily productive. We might take a look at the kinds of words we use so we can help prepare students for the new curriculum.”

Goffreda said while computers with spellchecking programs have become an important tool, spelling remains a critical skill.

“People are smarter than computers,” he said. “And I still think there is some value to spelling bees if you have the right words that prepare people for future careers.”

School spelling bees have already taken place at Spencer Elementary and Walton Elementary/Middle School. Geary Elementary/Middle is planning its spelling bee for 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 23.

Reedy Elementary and Spencer Middle are not planning spelling bees this year, officials at those schools said.