Two-time state champion reaches quarterfinals of National Spelling Bee

Paul Feely, The New Hampshire Union Leader, Manchester
·2 min read

Jun. 14—Two-time New Hampshire state spelling bee champion Aadhavan Veerendra has made it through to the quarterfinals of this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Saturday's preliminaries consisted of three rounds of oral competition.

In the first round, contestants were asked to spell a word. If they spelled it correctly, they moved on to the second round, answering a multiple-choice word meaning question.

If they answered that correctly, they were asked to spell another word.

Addy, 11, of Portsmouth, correctly spelled three words — portmanteau, trembling (in response to a question asking 'something described as palpitant is...'), and promptuary.

Spellers answering all three questions correctly moved on to Tuesday's quarterfinals.

All competition through the semifinals will be held on a virtual basis. The top 10-12 finalists will travel to the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Bay Lake, Fla., for the finals, which will be July 8.

The bee is limited to students who were in eighth grade or lower on Aug. 31, 2020. Contestants range in age from 9 to 15 years old.

The field consists of spellers from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, along with Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Department of Defense schools in Europe.

Four foreign nations are also represented — the Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, and Japan.

The winner will receive $50,000, a commemorative medal and the Scripps Cup, the official championship trophy of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, from Scripps, which owns television stations and cable and broadcast networks.

The winner also will receive $2,500 and a complete reference library from the dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster; $400 of reference works from Encyclopedia Britannica, including a replica set of the 1768 encyclopedia, and a three-year online membership.

The coronavirus pandemic prompted organizers to make several changes to the bee in addition to holding the competition on a virtual basis through the semifinals and dropping a multiple-choice test with 12 spelling words and 14 vocabulary questions.

Veerendra won the New Hampshire State Spelling Bee — sponsored by the Union Leader — for the second year in a row back in March, after correctly spelling "dhole" (an Asian wild dog).