Mike Farris:
A good friend of mine came to me with a great idea about a national contest for students. His idea came from two things. One, there was a young lady in his church named Shelby Kennedy, who loved the word of God, who memorized the word of God. She passed away at a young age of cancer, and he wanted to do something to honor her memory.

Then secondly, he got to thinking about the National Spelling Bee, and what it seemed to be—a comparative waste of time. While spellings words have their place, there is no value in spelling words when it comes to comparison with learning the word of God.

Taking these two ideas together, my friend said, “Let’s start a National Bible Bee, in honor of Shelby Kennedy, to see that young people memorize what’s truly valuable—the word of God.”

And he wanted to make sure that this contest expressed the value of the word of God by putting the highest prize for any contest in the country behind it. And so there is going to be a National Bible Bee. The top prize is $100,000 for the national senior winner, and the man who’s going to direct that program, Mark Rasche, is with us on the phone today.

Welcome, Mark.

Mark Rasche:
Well, thank you for having me on your program, Mike. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Mike:
Mark, give us just a brief overview of the contest.

Mark:
We’re preparing to launch the first of its kind, world-class Bible Bee competition for ages 7-18. The local Bible Bee contests will culminate in a national competition in Washington, D.C.

Mike:
All this week, we’ll be talking about the National Bible Bee. I’m Mike Farris.