T-E-L-E-V-I-S-E-D.

The 2015 Vicksburg Warren School District Spelling Bee champion, Taylor Jennings, will be among the 26 contestants in this year’s Mississippi Statewide Spelling Bee.

The event will be broadcast live Tuesday at 10 a.m. on Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

“For many years, the statewide Spelling Bee has been broadcast on our network, enabling all of Mississippi to see the impressive talents of our students,” Ronnie Agnew, executive director of MPB said in a press release. “We know that among the competitors each year is a person capable of winning the national title. We’re pleased to play a role in showcasing Mississippi’s best.”

The event is sponsored by the Mississippi Association of Educators.

The winner of the state competition will advance to the 88th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., May 24 through 29.

Jennings, a sixth-grader at South Park Elementary School, correctly spelled indulgent to win district spelling bee at Bowmar Elementary School in February.

“I wrote my words five times each and their definitions,” she said. “I learned my parts of speech and I broke the words down and looked at their origins.”

Jennings said her parents, Rufus and Tiffany Jennings, helped her prepare, and the first thing she did after winning was call her mother and tell her she won.

This year’s competition featured a twist, alternating spelling and vocabulary rounds, which Jennings said made the competition even more difficult. The statewide competition will include this feature.

“I’m excited for the state competition,” Jennings said. “I’m going to work even harder this time.”

“I wish her all the best,” Sherry Garmon, the district coordinator of the spelling bee. I would love to see a Vicksburg-native win the state bee.”

According to the E. W. Scripps Company, which administers the National Spelling Bee program, the spelling bee is open to students who have neither turned 16 nor passed beyond the eighth grade and who currently attend schools that officially enrolled with the spelling bee program for the current academic year. A complete list of rules can be found at www.spellingbee.com.