Last year's second-place winner finds redemption at Missourian spelling bee

It only took six letters for Aanya Shetty, 11, to spell redemption.

“May I have the definition, please?” Shetty asked. As the definition was repeated, Shetty used her finger to scribble the word in her palm.

“Gypsum. G-Y-P-S-U-M. Gypsum.” She grinned.

That six-letter word won Shetty, a sixth grader representing John Warner Middle School, the first place spot in the fifth annual Columbia Missourian Regional Spelling Bee hosted Tuesday evening.

After winning second place behind her older sister, Jiya, in last year’s Bee, Aanya gets her turn on top. This will be the third consecutive year the Shetty family has earned top speller for mid-Missouri.

“Your sister is going to be excited, huh?” Megan Judy, former KOMU 8 anchor and Spelling Bee pronouncer, said after announcing the win.

Thirty-four students, grades two through eight, represented 34 mid-Missouri schools to compete for the top spot. After 90 minutes and 90 words spelled in eight rounds, Shetty won her place in the Scripps National Spelling Bee held in Washington, D.C. this summer.

There was a two-way tie for second place in round seven. Sixth grader Claire Dunkin, from Jefferson Middle School, earned one second place spot after stumbling on the word “avarice.” Dunkin successfully spelled words like “netiquette” and “Mesopotamian.” Seventh grader Callie Chitwood, from New Franklin Middle-High School, shared second place. Chitwood successfully spelled “equivalent” and “widdershins,” but lost on “kaleidoscope” in the seventh round.

Students were given a word and two minutes to provide their final spelling. They were able to ask to hear the definition of a word, the word used in a sentence and the word repeated before answering. Spellers could restart but could not change the letters they had already given if they did so.

“Slow down, ask questions, think positively and you’ll be ready to meet the challenge,” Elizabeth Stephens, executive editor of the Columbia Missourian, said before the Bee began.

The competition started out strong in round one with words like “baptismal,” “mortician” and “elaborative,” knocking out 11 spellers.

After round two, only 12 spellers remained.

Third grader George Willard, from Ulysses S. Grant Elementary School, successfully made it through to round three, spelling impeachable.

“I-M-P-E-A-C-H-A-B-L-E,” he answered. He moved to return to his seat before stopping to ask: “Is that correct?”

“It is,” Judy answered.

Round three crowned mid-Missouri’s top 10 spellers, with words like “vicinity,” “portentous” and “gluttonous” ending the run of three more students.

In round four, four more spellers met their match, including the youngest speller of the night. Second grader Mackenzie Yelton, representing Hatton-McCredie Elementary School, spelled “amass,” “retrograde” and “parable” correctly. Yelton almost made it to round five but misspelled “neonatology.”

By the end of round seven, Shetty had successfully spelled every word. In round eight, she spelled her last word for the win.

“It’s very exhilarating,” Shetty said. “I prepared as much as I could for this, so I really hoped I could win after all the hours of studying.”

After her back-and-forth battle with her older sister in last year’s Spelling Bee, Shetty was determined to come back this year prepared.

“I’m proud of my sister, but I’ll get it next year,” Aanya said after last year’s Bee.

She spent several hours a day studying to make that happen.

“Now I can say that I’ve won regionals, too, so (Jiya) can’t bully me anymore for not winning,” Aanya joked.

Jiya, who is in ninth grade this year and therefore too old to compete, said she is excited for her sister to have her turn as the Regional Champion.

“It’s really exciting, because I know she put a lot of effort into it, so it’s nice that she won,” Jiya said. “Plus, it was a lot less stressful this time for me, so that was really fun.”

Now, Aanya has a few months to prepare to compete on the big stage in Washington, D.C.

“It’s going to be much different than sitting in Columbia,” she said.