Congratulations Kavya Shivashankar
Winner of the national spelling bee.
People often teased me and my best friend by saying that we were good at spelling because we first had to learn to spell our own names. Nerds represent! I’d hazard a guess that among RR readers there’s a higher percentage of spelling bee champions than readers of the average blog.
Thirteen-year-old Kavya Shivashankar hails from Kansas.
I’ve been watching the bee for the past couple of years and have noticed repeat finalists. There also seems to be a slight *ahem* demographic overrepresentation. Take a look at the finalist pictures here. And take a look at their hometowns. I noticed that even Idaho had a student of color representing.
According to Scripps, 33 of the 293 spellers do not speak English as a first language. One hundred and seventeen speak another language besides English. I am also tickled that at least two of the finalists want to be neurosurgeons. When I was thirteen I still thought I was going to be a rock star.
Posted on May 29, 2009, in it CAN be done. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
Quick poll then? Spelling bee champions, or at least participants, raise your hands.
(don’t have spelling bees in the UK, but I had my own spelling list to learn, with harder words than the other kids – does that count?)
We didn’t have spelling bees in my school. …I only knew about them from reading American stories. We did have weekly spelling tests and I still have my spelling trumpet with its collection of gold stars.
I think my favourite finalist is Kennyi — he could spell sardoodledom without losing it to giggles. I can’t read that word without laughing, let alone spell it out loud.
I won the NY State spelling bee! Not Scripps-affiliated, sadly, but it was really nice to be at the state fair lugging around that trophy. I think I was maybe 13?