No spelling bee this year

This from the Tennessean today:

Dear Spelling Bee Coordinators:

As most of you know, The Tennessean has made the decision to cease our sponsorship of the Middle Tennessee Regional Spelling Bee beginning with the 2007-08 school year. The Tennessean took on this sponsorship when the Nashville Banner closed. Since that time, it has been our privilege to provide this program for schools throughout Middle Tennessee. After much deliberation and evaluation of our core mission, we determined that our resources need to be directed to programs that link more closely with our core mission.

Belmont University is very interested in taking on this sponsorship for the 2008-09 school year, but is not able to do so for the current school year. Because there is no local sponsor for the Middle Tennessee Regional Spelling Bee, it will not be conducted in 2007-08. Middle Tennessee will not have a representative at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in May 2008. This mailing list will be provided to Thom Storey at Belmont University, so that he can notify you about the 2008-09 school year. (snip)

So what's their core mission again? Oh, that's right. Make money.

Bill Hobbs has much more and the funniest headline.