[C]OLCHESTER — Raghav Dhandi has one more shot to become the country’s top speller.
The Montpelier eighth-grader defeated 31 other middle and elementary schoolers from across the state Tuesday in the Vermont Scripps Spelling Bee tournament.
Raghav, Vermont’s reigning spelling champion, will return to the national Scripps Bee in Washington, D.C., in late May, for his second chance at the U.S. crown. It’ll also be his last: As a rising Montpelier High School freshman, Raghav won’t be eligible next year.
Last year, Raghav made it through three rounds at the national competition before he was eliminated.
“I was somewhat unprepared,” he said after his win Tuesday. “This year I’ll be better.”
The spellers onstage at Saint Michael’s College made it through 39 rounds of competition. Those who misspelled a word left the stage at the end of each round.
“Waywiser” — “an instrument for measuring the distance traversed by a walker, vehicle, or ship” — tripped up one speller. “Belladonna” — “an Old World poisonous plant” — took down another.
By the end of the 17th round, only two spellers remained: Raghav, who attends Main Street Middle School in Montpelier, and Grace Casey, a student from Crossett Brook Middle School in Waterbury.
Grace and Raghav traded words for 22 more one-on-one rounds.
In round 39, Grace was given “cachet” — “a characteristic feature or quality conferring prestige” — and left off the silent “T.” Raghav followed with “anomaly,” then clinched the win by correctly spelling “hyperbole.”
Raghav said he had been “a little bit” nervous about retaining his title Tuesday. He practices using online spelling tools — My Spell It for the state competition, and SpellPundit for the nationals — and knows that other spellers were doing the same.
A Vermont student has never won the National Spelling Bee. States are represented by population at the national competition, and Vermont claims only one slot out of over 500.
Raghav says he wants to qualify for the final rounds of competition this year, which would require becoming one of the top 50 competitors.
But he’s also looking forward to catching up with his fellow returning champions. “I made friends last year,” he said.
