BizBee.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: ENTERTAINMENT - Services - Brief article

One of the original founders, Barbara Brown is now the "Word Nerd" and delivers words to the spellers.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The Alaska Literacy Program (ALP) and businesses that serve Alaska come together every year to support literacy through BizBee, a spelling bee competition. ALP was founded in 1974 and in its early days "people were trained in a church basement to teach one on one," says ALP's Director of Programs Lori Pickett. "Now we provide primarily classroom instruction to people learning English as an additional language."

The first BizBee, conceived by former ALP Board member Barbara Brown, was a collaboration between the Anchorage Daily News and the Anchorage Women's Club that provided funds for ALP.

"Companies and organizations pay money to spell in teams against each other but follow pretty much the same rules the kids have to follow," Pickett says. Organizations sign up as sponsors, and three individuals that must be from the organization compete as a group.

"It's a lot of fun. People dress in costume," Picket says. In the past teams have shown up in green sparkly hats, dressed as Charlie's Angels, and in...