Fe­male stu­dents dom­i­nat­ed the East Zone qual­i­fy­ing round of the bpTT Na­tion­al Sec­ondary Schools Scrab­ble cham­pi­onships, cap­tur­ing 15 of the 20 spots at stake for the grand fi­nals which will take place in No­vem­ber. AS­JA Girls Col­lege, Tu­na­puna, topped the stand­ings with five fi­nal­ists cov­er­ing the se­nior and ju­nior di­vi­sions when the cham­pi­onships were launched with the East Zone play-offs at Bon Air Sec­ondary School, Arou­ca, on Sat­ur­day. St Au­gus­tine Girls High School and Hillview Col­lege se­cured four fi­nal­ists each. Now in its 26th year, the cham­pi­onships are or­gan­ised by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Scrab­ble As­so­ci­a­tion (TTSA), in as­so­ci­a­tion with the Ro­tary Club of Ari­ma. On board as spon­sor in 2010, en­er­gy com­pa­ny bpTT has in­creased its cor­po­rate part­ner­ship with in­creased prizes in 2012.

The cham­pi­onships are di­vid­ed in­to five zones -East, South, Cen­tral, North and To­ba­go-with ten se­niors and ten ju­niors from each zone ad­vanc­ing to the grand fi­nals card­ed for City Hall, Port-of-Spain, on No­vem­ber 3. Top schools in both di­vi­sions will re­ceive tro­phies and cash prizes of $10,000, with the top stu­dents win­ning iPADs, PlaySta­tions, net­books and Kin­dles. TTSA Pres­i­dent, Kurt Ross, said the cham­pi­onships pre­sent­ed a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty for the stu­dents to qual­i­fy for se­lec­tion on the na­tion­al team for the World Ju­nior Scrab­ble Cham­pi­onships to be held in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, in De­cem­ber. He laud­ed bpTT for "your full sup­port" of these cham­pi­onships which help to nur­ture the minds of young peo­ple. Mar­garet Warn­er-Julien, gov­ern­ment and stake­hold­er re­la­tions ad­vis­er, bpTT, told TTSA of­fi­cials, teach­ers, par­ents and stu­dents that bpTT was pleased to con­tin­ue its part­ner­ship with the as­so­ci­a­tion.

"At bpTT, we be­lieve that learn­ing is not con­fined to the class­room and young peo­ple of­ten learn more eas­i­ly when they are ex­posed to fun, un­con­ven­tion­al meth­ods. You are cre­at­ing an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the youths to chan­nel their en­er­gies in­to pos­i­tive ac­tions, and in some way pre­vent­ing young peo­ple from falling prey to more dis­tract­ing and dan­ger­ous ac­tiv­i­ties." Warn­er-Julien added. Shar­ing the spot­light were scrab­ble whiz kids, Omari Blake, of St Mary's Col­lege, and Amir An­di-Ab­do­er­rach­man, of Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary, who have both qual­i­fied for the world ju­nior games.

Up­com­ing zon­al qual­i­fiers: Oc­to­ber 13: Cen­tral - In­door Re­gion­al Com­plex, Ch­agua­nas; Oc­to­ber 20: To­ba­go - Bish­op's High School, Scar­bor­ough; Oc­to­ber 27: North - St Mary's Col­lege, Port-of-Spain.

East Zone qual­i­fiers

(in or­der of rank)

Se­niors

Tama­ra John, UWI

Kia Boldan, Ari­ma Cen­tral Sec­ondary

Den­zel Moore, Hillview Col­lege

Rayana Gomez, St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary

Shamiya Charles, St Au­gus­tine Girls High School)

Clarans Sook­lal, Hillview Col­lege

Anas­ta­sia An­toine, AS­JA Girls Col­lege, Tu­na­puna

Toni Smith, Bon Air High School

Sabi­ha Mo­hammed, St Au­gus­tine Girls High School

Di­ana Ra­goo­nanan, AS­JA Girls Col­lege, Tu­na­puna.

Re­serves are Tam­era Camp­bell (AS­JA Girls Col­lege, Tu­na­puna) and Chantel Bap­tiste (Bish­op's Anstey High School East).

Ju­niors

Alis­sa Noel, St Au­gus­tine Girls High School

Aaron Chin King, Hillview Col­lege

Lin­da High­ley, Ari­ma Cen­tral Sec­ondary

Ci­mone Soon­dar, AS­JA Girls Col­lege, Tu­na­puna

Tamia Welling­ton, St Au­gus­tine Girls High School

An­drew Par­ris, Bon Air High School

Kel­ly Ann High­ley, Ari­ma Cen­tral Sec­ondary

Do­minic Her­nan­dez, Hillview Col­lege

An­gel­i­ca Fi­garo, AS­JA Girls Col­lege, Tu­na­puna

An­toni­ka Ce­les­tine, AS­JA Girls Col­lege, Tu­na­puna.

Re­serves are Ti­san Saun­ders (AS­JA Girls Col­lege, Tu­na­puna) and Bran­don Stephens (Ari­ma Cen­tral Sec­ondary).