In the seventh spelling round of the Mississippi State Spelling Bee, Vihaan Mahajan stood at the microphone ready for the word that would send him to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.
“We have one speller left, so he now is going to spell one word to be the champion,” said bee pronouncer Aundrea Self. “… The championship word is ‘acupuncture.’”
After asking for the word to be repeated, the definition and use in a sentence, Mahajan proceeded to spell the word correctly, followed by resounding applause from the audience.
Mahajan is an eighth grader from Northwest Rankin Middle School in Rankin County, and it is his first year competing at the state bee. He was one of 40 competing at the event held Saturday in the Nissan Auditorium at Mississippi University for Women.
Mahajan made it to the final four and was the only person in the seventh round to spell a word correctly. Because of this, he was challenged to spell one final word correctly, officially punching his ticket to the national bee.
He will be joined by runner-up Baruni Jakkula, an eighth-grader from T.L. Weston Middle School in Washington County as qualifiers for this summer’s national spelling bee. This year, due to funds raised by the community and bee sponsor, The Dispatch, the Mississippi bee is sending two spellers to Washington, D.C.
Mahajan said he was nervous but excited. When spelling, he uses sign language for the letter “R” because he cannot say the letter.
“I had a lot of help from my sister because she won it before, so she was really encouraging,” Mahajan said. “I’m excited (for the national bee) because I can meet people who like the same things I like.”
After Mahajan was declared champion, Jakkula and Annunciation Catholic School eighth-grader Angelina Tan – Lowndes County’s representative – went back and forth for 12 more rounds before Jakkula prevailed with the word “hutia.”
Tan will serve as alternate to the national bee in case either qualifier from Saturday’s state bee cannot compete.
As champion, Mahajan received a trophy, $1,000 in cash courtesy of the Mississippi Spelling Bee organization, a one-year membership to Encyclopedia-Britannica online premium, a one-year subscription to online unabridged Merriam-Webster and a goody-bag.
Jakkula said one of the best parts of the state bee was befriending the other spellers, and she ended the day with 39 new friends.
Both said they plan to study vigorously in preparation to compete on a national level.
“I’m going to focus more on studying the (word) stems and also memorizing the words and their definitions for the vocabulary rounds,” Jakkula said. “I never get the correct pronunciation on Google, so that’s the hardest thing to learn.”
Lois Kappler, state bee coordinator, said she is grateful for the community support to make the bee happen, and she is looking forward to her trip to Washington, D.C., with the spellers. She will also be there to be recognized as the regional partner of the year award for the 2022 bee season in conjunction with The Dispatch.
She said she also nominated Mahajan’s county bee coordinator, Kim LaFontaine, for an outstanding coordinator award for 2023, but she has not heard who has been selected.
Kappler said with the size of the bee this year and her looking to add 10 more schools to the bee list, preliminary rounds will be held on the Friday of next year’s bee to get down to the top 20 spellers. The top 20 will then take the stage on Saturday to break up the length of the bee.
The state bee was recorded by WCBI and will be available for broadcast after April 1.
The finals will be broadcast live on ION on June 1. The full broadcast schedule will be available on spellingbee.com by May 1.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 52 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.