275 children, between the ages of 8 and 15, competed in the 2011 Scripps National Spelling Bee.  The children were from the U.S., the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.  After 20 long rounds, a 14-year old girl from Pennsylvania won the entire competition. 

Sukanya Roy, of Wilkes-Barre, PA had to spell the word: cymotrichous, which means "having the hair wavy."  Not only did she take home the title and a rather large trophy, but she also went home $40,000 richer.  Roy is notorious for writing invisible words on her palm to try and visualize the correct spelling.  She contends that she knew when given her final word, that she knew the correct spelling no problem. 
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Sukanya Roy
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Roy is the fourth Indian-American to win the big title in the last four years.  Roy beat out 12-year old Laura Newcombe of Toronto, who took home second place.The semi-finals were held Tuesday and Wednesday, while the finals aired last night on ESPN

I actually caught about an hour of the spelling bee last night and have to admit, there was tough words.  It's amazing at how poised these children are and how intelligent as well.  Most of them knew the word as soon as they heard it, but in an instance where they weren't sure of the word, they were able to hear the word's definition, how the word is used in a sentence, other pronunciations, and the word's origin. 

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After watching these kids compete, all I have to say is, "thank God for spell check!"

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