Three former Creekview students have competed against each other many times at local spelling bees in the past.
Lexy Webster, daughter of Dustin and Lauren Webster, won the Creekview Bee two years in a row, edging out Garrett and Pierce Bryner each time.
After Lexy moved to Elk Ridge, no one ever expected these three students to compete again.
However, this year, miraculously, all three get to compete again at the highest level, representing Utah at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
For the first time in the 91 years of the Bee, twins have the opportunity of competing against each other. Hundreds of twins have competed in past years, as regional champions, but they have competed alone, without the possibility of sharing the stage with their twin. But here in Price, two young men have qualified to do just that.
Pierce and Garrett Bryner, identical twin boys of Christian and Liz Bryner, both get to move on to the National Bee held in Oxon Hill, Maryland, just outside the nation’s capital.
Garrett qualified by winning the Southeast Regional Spelling Bee.
In the past, only winners from sponsored regions could attend, which precludes the possibility of twins ever sharing the experience.
However, due to unequal distributions of sponsorships, Scripps launched a new RSVBee pathway to the national bee.
Some states have 20-30 separate sponsors, enabling them to be heavily represented at the bee. Other states have only a single sponsor, requiring a student to out-spell every other student in the state in order to qualify.
RSVBee allows students to apply who have won their local school bee, and then a point system applies to applicants, favoring those who have previously attended the national bee and those who are older and closer to aging-out of the bee. Since Pierce won the Mont Harmon Middle School Bee, and since he is in eighth grade (the oldest grade permitted) he was one of 225 students invited to attend out of 856 who applied through RSVBee.
Former Price student, Lexy Webster, also gets to compete this year at the national level. After moving to Utah County, she won her school bee at Salem Junior High School the last two years, but faced tough competition at the Northern Utah Regional Spelling Bee, which represents the most densely populated areas of the state.
This year she placed third, but not high enough to qualify for nationals in the traditional way. However, as an eighth grader who submitted a timely application to RSVBee, she has also been invited to attend.
All three will participate in Bee Week from May 27 to June 1.
You can watch the preliminary oral rounds on May 29 and May 30 on ESPN 3.
The Finals will be held May 31 live at 6:30 pm MST on ESPN.
Price twins headed to National Spelling Bee; will share stage with Creekview foe
Garrett Bryner, Lexy Webster and Pierce Bryner, now eighth graders, are headed to the National Spelling Bee in May. The three are all old foes, having competed against each other as Creekview Elementary students (see photo above).