Girls from Cherry Hill, Aston fall short in final round of National Spelling Bee
Shruthika Padhy and Phoebe Smith were among 16 finalists slated to compete Thursday night
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Two 12-year-old girls, one from Cherry Hill and the other from Aston, reached the finals but fell short of the top spot Thursday night at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Maryland.
Shruthika Padhy, a seventh grader at Rosa International Middle School in Cherry Hill, finished in 12th place after misspelling paillasson, which Merriam-Webster defines as "coarsely woven natural or synthetic straw used for hats."
Phoebe Smith, a seventh grader at Northley Middle School in Aston, finished in 11th place after misspelling cabalassou, which Merriam-Webster defines as a giant armadillo.
Both girls survived eight rounds and were among the final 16 competitors who took center stage at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center near Washington.
The championship was won at 10:41 p.m. by Karthik Nemmani, 14, an eighth grader from McKinney, Texas, who correctly spelled the word "koinonia," which Merriam-Webster defines as an "intimate spiritual communion and participative sharing in a common religious commitment and spiritual community."
It was the second finals for Padhy, who tied for seventh place last year. She placed 22nd in 2016.
Smith tied for 189th place last year.
One of the words Smith spelled correctly earlier Thursday night was thymiaterion, defined as a vessel used by ancient Greeks to burn incense, according to the Scripps National Spelling Bee website.
Padhy, who was speller No. 290 in this year's national contest, on Thursday correctly spelled Guayaquil, which is a port city in Ecuador along the Guayas River.
There were a total of 516 children who qualified for the nationals this year.
A second New Jersey student, Navneeth Murali of Edison, made it to the finals and landed in fifth place after misspelling the word "gelinotte," which is a European woodland grouse.
Murali was speller No. 279, and Smith was speller No. 326.
The first-place prize this year includes $40,000 cash and an engraved trophy along with a trip to New York to appear on the ABC talk show Live With Kelly and Ryan.
The cash prize for second place is $30,000. Third place gets $20,000, fourth gets $10,000, fifth gets $5,000, and sixth will receive $2,500. All spellers who made it to the seventh round up to seventh place will get $2,000.
The first national spelling bee was organized in 1925 by the Louisville Courier-Journal and was taken over in 1941 by the old Scripps-Howard Newspapers chain.