Elijah Earp Travels to Albuquerque to Compete in State Spelling Bee
Twenty-five of the best spellers in New Mexico traveled to Albuquerque last Saturday to compete in the State Spelling Bee, held on the campus of Central New Mexico Community College. Elijah Earp, winner of the Jal Junior High Spelling Bee as well as the Lea County Spelling Bee earlier this year, was one of the spellers honored to be a part of the 2026 New Mexico State Spelling Bee. In addition to winning at the county level, spellers had to compete in an online bee to qualify for the state spelling bee. The online bee whittled the number of spellers invited to the state bee to just 25 from across the Land of Enchantment.
The first round took 52 minutes to complete, while the second took just 15 minutes to complete, the third 10 minutes. At that point, twenty spellers remained. Earp got out by misspelling the word, “Adversaria.” With each successive round, the difficulty level of the words increased.
The competition lasted from 9:00 a.m. to about 2:00 p.m., with a break for lunch. Spellers had to register between 8:00 a.m. and 8:40 a.m., and were disqualified if not seated on the platform by 8:45 a.m…