How do you spell success? Local friends, former neighbors move on in National Bee
WASHINGTON — The two competitors representing Houston at the Scripps National Spelling Bee were familiar with each other long before they reached the stage and sat side-byside Wednesday.
Shobha Dasari, 14, and Siddharth Krishnakumar, 13, are friends and former neighbors, competing against each other for the last few years at local-level spelling bees.
And their competition will continue at least into Thursday, as they both were among the 49 spellers to qualify for the Bee’s semifinals.
They both scored high enough on the written test to qualify in addition to accurately spelling their two onstage words Wednesday morning and afternoon.
Shobha passed through on the words “apostrophe” and “epitasis” — a word that means the middle part of a play that develops the main action.
Siddharth spelled “tsunami” and “trebuchet,” which is a medieval military weapon.
A favorite to win
Shobha, who attends McCullough Junior High in The Woodlands, is a favorite this year as one of only 13 out of 283 spellers back for their third National Spelling Bee. Only four spellers competing this year have been to more Bees than Shobha.
This will be her last year, regardless of the outcome. Spellers are not allowed to compete if they are in high school. Knowing this, she put even more focus on the Bee this year.
“I know I’m not going to get another chance,” she said. “I want to leave here with no regrets.”
Siddharth, who attends Pearland Junior High West, has spent five years in competitive spelling, but this is his first time reaching the National Bee. In years past, he’s lost at lower spelling bees to either Shobha or her younger brother, who is Siddharth’s best friend and also a strong speller.
Siddharth studies an almost unfathomable amount — six hours every weekday after school (if he doesn’t have unfinished homework) and up to 12 hours on weekends. As the date of the National Bee got closer, he did not increase his study time as some spellers do. Not because he didn’t think it would help but because he literally could not fit any more study time into the week.
“It’s just fun learning words from different languages and seeing if you know how to spell them,” Siddharth said.
He also partakes in math competitions and plays piano, saxophone for his school and tennis.
Studies all the time
But it’s spelling that he spends as much of his free time studying as possible.
“I could never get past the district (because of Shobha and her brother),” Siddharth said. “But now I’ve got a chance.”
Siddharth and Shobha say they aren’t really competing against each other. Rather, they are competing against the dictionary and its nearly half a million words.
Siddharth occasionally writes on his hand or his name card while spelling, and Shobha uses her palm to script the letters.