Green Meadow’s Palabay wins 2026 CNMI Statewide Spelling Bee

Fifty students from both public and private schools in the CNMI took part in the 2026 CNMI Statewide Spelling Bee yesterday at the Pedro P. Tenorio Multi-Purpose Center in Susupe.

The group narrowed down to the final three placers after 18 rounds and concluded with 14-year-old Jamie Andrea Palabay from Green Meadow School winning the title, sealing the competition with the word “zamacueca.” Arkel Del Rio, a fourth grader from Northern Marianas International School, won second place, and Green Meadow’s Nicole Tangonan took third.

Following the competition, Palabay shared with Marianas Press her experience: “It was nerve-wracking at first, but as the rounds progressed, like the weight lifted off of me. I became more confident.”

As the overall winner for the CNMI, Palabay will travel to Guam to compete in the regional qualifier for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Palabay is no stranger to the spelling bee world and shared that last year she represented her school in Guam. She said she was grateful and looking forward to representing the CNMI in the upcoming regional competition. Aside from the competition, she shared that she was looking forward to enjoying Guam’s restaurants, particularly Jolibee’s.

When asked about her method of preparation for spelling bees, she shared: “Well, I recommend to read more, like every chance you get to read, like read. And also, whenever you hear a familiar word or an unfamiliar word, note the spelling of it and learn. And I also use this app called Word Club. It's made by Scripps Spelling Bee and I practice with that.”

NMIS’ Arkel shared that while competing, he was really nervous and credited his teachers for getting him well-versed and ready to take on many of the harder words. His coach, Katherine Barja, told Marianas Press, “Im so proud of him, He’s still in fourth grade so he still has four more years [in the competition].”

Public School System's English Language Arts Department program manager, and one of the coordinators of this year’s Spelling Bee, Vinni Orsini shared that they were really impressed with the participating students: “We had 50 participants from all private and public schools from ages... Our youngest participant was in third grade, and our oldest participant was eighth grade. We had four from Rota, and two from Tinian this year. And in fact, our student from Tinian got fourth place, so he's the highest-ranking, scoring for public school. But the top three all came from private schools, and two of them were from Green Meadows, so we're really impressed.”

Osini also expressed gratitude toward partners who helped make the event possible: “We are very happy to have our judges. They come from the library, the humanities, and the college, and so these are our partners in literacy across the island. Spelling is not just about words, because autocorrect can do it, but spelling teaches you a lot about history, because they come from places of origin. They have different meanings to us, and they are also used to make the world a lot more colorful. So the more words we know, the more words we can spell, the more meaning we can give to our lives, and so these students are carrying that tradition of respecting words and being able to honor them by spelling them correctly.”