Spelling Bee 2015 Is Another Tie

Last night’s Spelling Bee finals ended again with an unusual result like last year.

The geekiest competition for kids took place last night and again ended with an unusual result. The Spelling Bee is so big that the finals get broadcasted on ESPN Television. The Scribbs Spelling Bee 2015 has again two winners like last year. Speller Vanya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas, and speller Gokul Venkatachalam of St. Louis, Missouri have won last night the 2015 Scripps National Spelling Bee in National Harbor, Maryland. 

Last year Sriram Hathwar shared the Spelling Bee championship with Ansun Sujoe. The last spelling bee tie was though way back in 1962. And now there has been a consecutive tie. The two beat 285 spellers in the final competition last night.

Last year’s co-champion Sriram Hathwar said about the new tie: “It seems like a once-in-a-lifetime experience, then I thought there was an 80% chance. Having joint champions is great for the bee because it makes spellers know that hard work can pay off and joint championships are possible.”

The National Spelling Bee is largest and longest-running educational promotion, administered on a not-for-profit basis by The E.W. Scripps Company and local spelling bee sponsors in the United States, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Department of Defense Schools in Europe; also, the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan and South Korea.

The word bee, as used in spelling bee, is one of those language puzzles that has never been satisfactorily accounted for. A fairly old and widely-used word, it refers to a community social gathering at which friends and neighbors join together in a single activity (sewing, quilting, barn raising, etc.) usually to help one person or family. The earliest known example in print is a spinning bee, in 1769. 

In a neat cross-reference to popular culture, rapper Drake got referenced in an one of spelling challenges about the word “bacchius.”