Pa. girl wins marathon spelling bee
OXON HILL, Md. — It went on and on and on. Five spellers who seemingly had memorized the entire dictionary simply could not be stumped with any word tossed their way. It was getting late, way past bedtime, and well beyond the time slot allotted by ESPN for its telecast.
Finally, after 21 consecutive spellings without a miss, one of them finally flubbed a word. Eventually, the others were gone except for 14-year-old eighth grader Sukanya Roy of South Abington Township, Pa., who took home the trophy and the more than $40,000 in cash and prizes at the 84th Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Sukanya’s winning word was “cymotrichous,’’ which relates to wavy hair. She is the fourth consecutive Indian-American to win the bee and the ninth in the last 13 years, a run that began when Nupur Lala won in 1999 and was later featured in the documentary “Spellbound.’’
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