Texas Student Wins the National Spelling Bee

A young Texan proved victorious at the Scripps National Spelling Bee this year, his victory secured on the word "koinonia," which, according to Merriam-Webster, means "the Christian fellowship or body of believers." The winner, fourteen-year-old Karthik Nemmani of McKinney, made it to the competition as a wild card. This is truly a testament to the spelling prowess of North Texans, who, according to the Dallas Morning News, took the first three places in the national bee this year. Congratulations to Karthik and all of the other youthful Texans who made it to the finals!

My own spelling bee story is hardly as illustrious as the one above. Although I won the school spelling bee in the fourth grade, I crashed and burned in the sixth grade spelling bee. Though I studied hard and could spell pretty much any word in the book, I got knocked out in the first round by the word "abut," which I apparently had been mispronouncing. Upon misspelling the word, I hollered a rather mild FCC-approved vulgarism into the microphone. 

The auditorium burst into laughter, and my teacher met me at the edge of the stage absolutely hot under the collar. She said that if I thought that I was cute or funny I was dead wrong. I replied that I did not think either of those things. The word had simply slipped out because I got disqualified in the first round. It was merely the agony of defeat.

But enough with my crash and burn. Hurray for McKinney's Karthik Nemmani and the power spellers of North Texas!