Imperial Valley in the National Spelling Bee

Imperial County’s ace speller is on his way to the national semifinals once again.

Fourteen-year-old Brandon Whitehead joins 48 other youngsters from English-speaking nations around the world in the 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee’s semifinals. The semifinals are broadcasted live on ESPN starting at 7 a.m. today Pacific time with the finals airing at 8 p.m. today on ABC.

This trip to Washington, D.C., marks Brandon’s third trip to nationals. Today’s semifinal and final rounds are also the third day of the national bee, which started Wednesday with preliminaries.

“Eleven million kids start out in the Scripps Program,” Brandon’s mother, Lita Whitehead, said.

Lita Whitehead said everyone takes a different road to get to the national competition.

“In the Imperial Valley he had to pass a school bee and then two kids go to regionals. From regional kids go right to national spelling bee.”

He also went to state but it wasn’t a qualifier for the national competition. At state he placed ninth a couple of weeks before coming to nationals, Whitehead said.

Mother and son both said that Brandon has put a lot of work into practicing for the national stage.

“I’ve studied the dictionary, Spell It, the Scripps-provided word lists and other spelling bee preparation tools,” the young speller said, noting that just two of the materials combine for a whopping 1,600 words.

“I just really like words and it’s very interesting how all the words go together and stuff,” he said. “I really want to win.”

Brandon said as the stakes are higher and the words are harder, the nerves also get a bit shakier.

“(Today) they usually have really hard words to try and knock everybody out,” he said. “It kind of makes you nervous, wondering if you’re going to get a super-hard word or not.”

And though the trip to the nation’s capital has been fun and Brandon has made friends from all over the world, he is just excited about the experience and the chance to win.

“I think it has been a good competition,” he said. “I like spelling and it’s really fun.

“If I won a national spelling bee it would probably be the best thing that ever happened to me,” Brandon said.