Sukanya Roy, 2011 Scripps National Spelling Bee Winner!

Be they large or small, there’s nothing quite like a spelling bee, and the Scripps National Spelling Bee is one of the most impressive displays of academic talent you’ll ever find broadcast on television.  While Jeopardy is a great test of general knowledge, there’s nothing quite like the specific test of brains that spelling the world’s toughest words correctly can brink.  Just ask Sukanya Roy.  Thanks to the daily practice of spelling her first name correctly, Sukanya Roy of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, claimed the 2011 Scripps National Spelling Bee title last night.

The word which Roy spelled correctly to claim the title?  Cymotrichous, which means to have the hair wavy.  Roy bested 275 other spellers from around the world to claim the top prize, thanks to her spelling bee trick of writing the word on the inside of her palm with an invisible pencil.  She claims a top prize of $30,000.

Meanwhile, when I won my school-wide fifth-grade spelling bee, I got a certificate of achievement, a pat on the back, and an invitation to the city-wide spelling bee, where I promptly choked and failed out in the first round because I was concentrating more on not being sick than I was spelling words.

Image:  USA Today

Tags: Sukanya Roy, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania,  cymotrichous,  Scripps National Spelling Bee, 2011 Scripps National Spelling Bee, Sukanya Roy wins Scripps National Spelling Bee, 14-year-old wins Scripps National Spelling Bee

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