Associated Press
On a cool, windy February day with occasional rain showers, Dev spent five miserable hours spelling outdoors at Exploria Stadium, the home of Major League Soccer's Orlando City club, ultimately finishing fourth in a regional bee that he was forced to compete in for the first time. “My regional was hard enough to win when it wasn’t encompassing Orlando,” said Dev, a 13-year-old seventh-grader. While the National Spelling Bee is back — fully in person at its usual venue outside Washington for the first time since 2019 — Dev's experiences illustrate how the pandemic continues to affect kids who've spent years preparing to compete for spelling's top prize.