Georgia spelling bee hopes dashed

Interview with Sumedh Garimella

Before he left Georgia, Sumedh Garimella spelled “nociceptive” with aplomb, hurdled past “perionychium” and sealed his reputation as a state champion with the word “enterorrhagia.”

Despite that formidable dictionary of a mind, though, the 14-year-old from Duluth met competition he couldn’t beat when he travelled to Washington, D.C. for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

He made no spelling errors in two turns on stage during the semifinal rounds Thursday against 45 other expert spellers. But officials use a cumulative point system, including results from offstage computer tests, to calculate the outcome. A dozen other kids claimed the most points and advanced to the final round Thursday evening.

Sumedh said he didn’t expect to make it as far as he did and thanked Georgians for the encouragement. He said he was undone by vocabulary words on the tests and on stage.

Try defining “pourboire,” for example, one word on the offstage test. (A tip.)

“It was really hard,” he said.

Sumedh and one other Georgian were among 281 students competing in Washington, D.C. this week after winning regional competitions. They bested 11 million other kids to get there. The other Georgian, fifth-grader Charles Li of Martinez, competed Wednesday but did not make it to the semifinals.

Sumedh said he has been competing in spelling bees for five to six years and that he prepared the hard way, by reading the dictionary and otherwise “studying words.” All that is behind him now, though. He just finished at Richard Hull Middle School in Duluth and is getting ready for his freshman year at Peachtree Ridge High. His focus this summer will be reading up for an AP geography course.

The boy is also a math whiz and can recite pi up to 75 digits, according to his bio on the Scripps website. He is considering a career in business or maybe computer science, but said his plans for adulthood are “kind of hazy” right now.

This competition, though, will likely endure as a crystal clear memory.