The contestants always pronounce the word before and after spelling it. Why is that? Simply tradidion? It’s obvious that pronunciation has no effect on the competition itself.
Reciting the word before spelling it I can (kinda) see, but why after?
Is the military maybe in charge of spelling bees? 
Peace,
mangeorge
I’m sure Andy’s aunt is a wonderful speller, but don’t think she hosted any spelling contests.
That was intended as a special a treat for spelling nazis.
Your welcome!
I always thought it was to signal the start and end of the spell of that word. How are the judges to know if you have finished? If you didn’t say the word after, you might be able to sneak in another letter if you thought the judges were displeased, but before they spoke. Granted, that won’t work for all words, but it prevents ambiguity.
Thanks for that one too 
It is buying time to think and keeping as much stage time as possible. They memorize so many spelling lists, yet they never just crank out a word, even an easy one.
Thank’s!
Hm… shouldn’t it be spelling bees?
Doh. I fell for it
Your well come.
I’ve been helping out with a regional spelling bee for about 20 years now. With our bee at least, the speller doesn’t HAVE to pronounce the word either before or after. However, it’s a good idea to pronounce it before because it lets the judges hear that you understood the word correctly. We have some spellers pronounce it at the end and some not. It just lets the judges know you’ve finished. If you don’t say the word at the end, they’ll just assume you’ve finished if you’ve stopped spelling and look like you don’t plan to say anything else.
Back in middle school I seem to recall that we had to say the word before and after to indicate that we were starting to spell and finishing. Prevents ambiguity, as someone mentioned.
I’ve been a judge at several regional bees and it lets us know (hopefully) that the kid actually heard the correct word. For example, if the pronouncer says, “beech” and the kid repeats “bees”, we can catch him and have him listen as the word is pronounced again.
So, the other misspelling was on purpose too? (my bold)
Way back in 2nd grade, the teacher told us that saying the word, spelling it, then saying the word again makes it a complete sentence. Don’t ask me how that works.
sigh Ah, the chimeric complete sentence. I dearly recall the multi-page Pit slugfest that arose when someone insisted that “No.” is not a well-formed utterance because, lacking a subject and predicate, it isn’t a complete sentence.
Saying a word, spelling it, and saying it again is definitely not a complete sentence. Not sure about “no,” but I was still under the impression that complete sentences needed subjects and verbs. Hence, “go” is a complete sentence, for example. There’s nothing particularly special about complete sentences that makes “no” unusable, but if we’re going by definitions, I thought that’s where we still were.
No, that one I blame on old age.