It's disability awareness week and one of the highlights is the annual finger bee. It is the spelling bee for deaf children and this morning students from schools across the country battled for supremacy in the art of finger spelling. Here is how it ended.
Keith Swift Reporting,
This morning the senior competition came down to Shanice Brown from Stella Maris School Shane Castillo from Stella Maris, and Edgar Canelo from St. Peter's School in Orange Walk. Shanice came out on top when she correctly spelt Corozal.
Shane and Edgar battled for second and third place. They went through six rounds - exhausting the list of words and at one point - exhausting Shane. It was six rounds of that - 12 words until finally Edgar edged out Shane. But Shanice was in first and she later told me that her hard work had paid off.
Shanice Brown,
[Interpretor] "She's very happy. Her mother helped her to win and different children, her cousins, helped her. She wonders what her gift will be. It was easy, she studied, she practiced, she learnt, it was good."
Keith Swift,
What was the hardest word for her?
Shanice Brown,
No hard words. They were all easy."
In the junior finger bee, Jamie Muschamp from Stella Maris placed first, Omica Chun and Steven Ferrel from the Cayo Institute for the Deaf placed second and third respectively. Both the senior and junior winners took home portable DVD players. The winning schools received trophies and all participants received sign dictionaries.
