SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - Kevin Luo of Pacific Trails Middle School has been crowned the winner of the 2018 countywide spelling bee.
The event began at 9 a.m. at the McMillin Companies Event Center at Liberty Station and lasted for nearly four hours.
Last year’s local winner was Pacific Trails Middle School student Yash Hande. Yash advanced to the 90th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee. Although he correctly spelled "Polynesian" in the second round and "demographic", he did not score high enough on his written test to advance to finals.
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SAN DIEGO WINNERS
California has produced four winners in the history of the bee. Two of them are from San Diego.
Snigdha Nandipati was the most recent local student to take the trophy in 2012. Anurag Kashyap won in 2005 for spelling 'appoggiatura'.
THE HISTORY
2017 marked nine decades of the national spelling bee. It started in 1925 as a collaborative education effort between nine newspapers.
The bee was not held for three years during World War II.
Spellers proved to be such fierce competitors, the event was first broadcast on television in 1946.
WHAT THEY WIN
During last year’s event, the so-called “Spellebrities” received a Kindle Paperwhite, a one-year subscription to Meriam-Webster Unabridged Online, a 2017 United States Mint Proof Set through the Samuel Lewis Sugarcane Award, and a one-year membership to Britannica Online Premium.
The finalists received gift cards and cash prizes, with the winner receiving $40,000.
Ananya Vinay of Fresno was the 2017 champion for correctly spelling ‘marocain’, which is a type of dress fabric. She was featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and LIVE with Kelly and Ryan.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee will take place May 29-31 in Washington, D.C.
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