A Buckeye And A Bee

History was made moments ago at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. as Anamika Veeramani (from North Royalton) became the 9th Ohioan to win the Scripp’s National Spelling Bee.  Ohio now holds the record for most winners.  It has been 42 years between Buckeye victories,  The winning word: stromuhr (a rheometer designed to measure the amount and speed of blood flow through an artery).

Also new to me is the inclusion of a Canadian speller (an 11 year old girl from Toronto who would have been the youngest champion since the 1940s… but finishing in the top 10 is no small feat).  I was also unaware that a Puerto Rican speller is also eligible.

In the top 4  were Elizabeth Platz of Missouri, Shantanu Srivatsa of North Dakota and Adrian Gunawan of Arlington Heights, Illinois.

One highlight was the moment when Miss Platz told the announcer that his sentence using the word rhytidome was “boring.”  Unfortunately for Elizabeth, her attempt at brevity did not help in the spelling of the word derived from the Greek which is the bark external to the last formed periderm I don’t get it, either).  She spelled it r-h-y-t-o-d-o-m-e.  Darn schwa.

Congrats to all the spellers!  And welcome back to OHIO!