Local celebrities to test spelling ability in public bee

Local celebrities in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, will flex their mental muscles at Read to Succeed’s 2007 Rebecca Jones Celebrity Spelling Bee Saturday, November 27, in the Patterson Park Community Center Theater. “All of this is about encouraging our young people to read and enjoy reading …” Rutherford County Mayor and celebrity speller Ernest Burgess said. “If these folks are willing to publicly spell, (then) literacy must be important,” Ronni Shaw, Read to Succeed executive director, said. Spellers, like Burgess, are relieved to know words start out at an easy third-grade level and advance up to an eighth-grade level. Also, celebrities will be asked to spell words related to their chosen field, as in, Burgess may be asked to spell, “Rutherford.” Read about the bee in The Murfreesboro Post.