Spelling Bee Champ Aces ‘Vivisepulture’
WASHINGTON — Wendy Guey of West Palm Beach, Fla., a four-time contender, won the 69th National Spelling Bee and the $5,000 first prize Thursday by spelling “vivisepulture” correctly. She defeated Nikki Dowdy of Houston, who missed “cervicorn.”
It was an all-girl final when the elimination got down to three spellers.
“I really wanted to win and I prayed a lot,” Wendy said. “I was just really lucky that I got all the words I knew.”
What will she do with her prize money?
“Spend it,” Wendy said.
Wendy is 12 years old and a seventh-grader at the Palm Beach County School of the Arts in West Palm Beach. She was sent as a contestant by the Palm Beach Post.
In the fourth round, spellers dropped out rapidly as the words got tougher. For the final, televised, round of the Scripps-Howard newspapers’ competition, 35 of the original 247 spellers remained.
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