By Alabama Public Radio
Washington, DC – Twelve-year-old Ben Szatanek is a seventh-grader at Catholic Middle School in Montgomery. He's also Alabama's entry in the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee. It got started Wednesday morning. Ben won Alabama's spelling bee in March. He joins 274 other school children in grades four through eight in Washington, D-C. There are 139 boys and 136 girls from the 50 states, U-S territories, and several countries around the world. If you don't remember how it works, here it is -- Spell a word correctly and you advance to the next round. If you misspell the word, you hear a little "ding" and you're out. The winner gets 37-thousand dollars in cash and prizes. A-B-C television is planning to broadcast the final two hours of the competition Thursday night.