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Amazing kid wins US$40,000

By on June 8, 2011
Sukyana Roy, 14-year old Indian-American from Pennsylvania, USA is this year’s Champion of the 84th Scripps National Spelling Bee competition held last week in Washington DC, televised on ESPN. She took home more than US$40,000 (approx. ¥3.2M) in cash and prizes.

Sukanya grabbed the top position from rival Laura Newcombe as she spelled the winning word “cymotrichous”, which means having wavy hair.

“I went through the dictionary once or twice,” said Sukanya, who tied for 12th in 2009 and 20th in 2010, “and I guess some of the words really stuck.” 

Sukanya’s father when asked about his influence on his daughter replied, “This is not something we pressurized her to do. She wanted to do this by herself, and we basically just helped her along. It’s a few years; this didn’t happen overnight.”

It is now the 4th consecutive time that the title has been won by an Indian American and the 9th in the last 13 years.

Scripps National Spelling Bee is a non-profi t organization based in Cincinati, Ohio and is the largest and longest-running educational promotion administered by The E.W. Scripps Company. Their sponsors come from all over the United States, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, the Department of Defense Schools in Europe, the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

The purpose of this not-for-profit endeavour is to aid students improve their spelling, increase and sharpen their vocabularies, learn the concepts, and develop correct English usage to equip them with a skill all their lives.  

Three 10 year old spellers have made it to the semi-finals competing with much confidence. The contest was participated in by 275 spellers 8-15 years of age. Sukanya emerged winner from the final 13 runners-up made up of students from the US, Puerto Rico, New Zealand, Canada, and Japan.

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