Scripps National Spelling Bee: Harini Logan, 14, of San Antonio, TX, wins beating out another Indian-American

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A fourteen-year old Indian-American high schooler who plans to write a book before finishing high school, won the prestigious 2022 Spelling Bee, June 3, after a grueling match that saw children of Indian origin dominate the final rounds of the national competition watched nationwide. Harini beat out another Indian-American student, Vikram Raju, to own the trophy and $50,000 in prize money.

Harini, who was sponsored by the Brauntex Performing Arts Theatre Association in San Antonio, is in The Montessori School of San Antonio, and had previous experience of The Bee, first in 2018 (tied for 323rd place),  then 2019 (tied for 30th place) and in 2021 (tied for 31st place).

An avid reader according to the bio provided by organizers of this highly anticipated event, which this year occurred in-person after the pandemic, Harini’s love for reading led her to compete in spelling bees. She loves creative writing and is planning on publishing a book sometime in high school, the website says.

She plays the piano and the recorder and is teaching herself the ukulele. In her free time, she loves playing with and walking Milo, her four-month-old Cavapoo puppy, doing a variety of quizzes with her brother on Alexa, reading, writing, listening to music and watching movies.

She may now indulge in her love of traveling which is what she wants to do once the Bee is behind her.

Each speller got 90 seconds to figure out the correct letters in the word.  Raju went first and spelled 15 words correctly of the 19 he attempted, Reuters reported.

Logan spelt 21 words correctly out of the 26 she was given.

Vikram Raju, 12, of Denver, Colorado, finished 2^nd. He previously competed in 2019 (tied for 51st place) and 2021 (tied for 21st place).

According to his bio provided by the Spelling Bee, Vikram has had a gift for spelling from a very young age, having excelled in phonics and learning words.

In addition to spelling, he enjoys playing the piano and playing basketball. He is very interested in learning about geography and is fascinated by science, especially medical and health science. He also is passionate about protecting the environment, and he likes to be in nature and enjoys hiking.

This year’s competition was held on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., in the Maryland National Harbor instead of in the Capital. This year, the competition was broadcast by subsidiaries of Scripps which sponsors the competition, after being shown live for 27 years on the cable sports channel ESPN,   The show’s host is actor LeVar Burton.

Spellers aged 7 to 15 from around the country competed for the prize of $50,000 cash from Scripps, additional money prizes and collections of Merriam Webster and Encyclopedia Britannica.  This year, 105 girls and 238 boys competed.

Televised live, The Bee is made exciting by the challenge it poses with difficult and sometimes obscure words, where players are given a limited time to try to spell it by determining aspects such as word origin etc., in order to try to spell it.

Indian American kids have dominated this national competition over the years. And last year was the first time an African American girl won it for the first time in its history.