As Top Spellers In North Texas Age Out Of Bees, They Turn To Coaching In Retirement

Three of the four top finishers in last month’s spelling bee in Washington are from north Texas. They learned from some of the best.

By Bill ZeebleJune 20, 2018 9:30 am, , , ,

From KERA:

“Koinonia,” a noun meaning a body of believers or spiritual communion, is the last word Karthik Nemmani spelled correctly to win this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Before that, the 14-year-old from McKinney correctly spelled “haecceitas” to be the last north Texan standing on stage. The word means the status of being an individual or a particular nature — in other words, individuality.

“To be on the top level, you have to really work hard and it requires a lot of perseverance and focus,” Karthik said.

North Texas is home to three of the four top finishers in last month’s bee in Washington D.C. The second- and third-place finishers were from Frisco and Flower Mound, respectively.

They’ve not only spent untold hours studying words they’ll likely never use, they’ve also received intense coaching — some from paid professionals.

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