For the past 99 years, hundreds of students have been invited to participate in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
This year, one of those students was none other than an RCMS student, Ankita Balaji, seventh grader, of the Dream Team.
Ankita first won her school spelling bee in third grade. Since then she has won all of her elementary schools spelling bees. This year was no different, with her being the Fairfax county representative at the contest.
This year’s contest was a three day long event, from May 28 – May 30. The event was held at National Harbor, Maryland. Each day more and more students were eliminated from the competition, Ankita was eliminated on the second day; Wednesday. Ankita ended up tying for 60th place with many of the other participants that day.
“There is a picture of me when they hit the bell,” said Ankita. “My face had been all scrunched up.”
But even though Ankita didn’t win she still had a lot of fun. She even made new friends.
“Since I was the two-hundred and thirty-fifth person to go up out of two-hundred and forty-five I had a lot of time to spare, so I was usually talking with the girl beside me.”
To prepare, Ankita studied with her parents and sister. Her sister had also competed in the SCRIPPS National Spelling Bee, Twice, in 2019 and in 2021. Ankita also used a website named ‘Spell Pundit’ to help her prepare.
One of Ankita’s family friends, Shritha Maram, a seventh grader on the Majestics team, was also very excited and proud that Ankita got into the National Spelling Bee.
“I didn’t get to go to any of her events, but I still supported her from the sidelines,” said Shritha.
Even though Ankita didn’t win the competition she was still happy to participate in it.
“I’ve been working toward it for a long time,” said Ankita.
