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Posts tagged as “Chaitra Thummala”

Zaila Avant-garde Wins Scripps National Spelling Bee, Becomes 1st African American Champion

Zaila Avant-garde Wins Scripps National Spelling Bee, Becomes 1st African American Champion

By goodblacknews on July 8, 2021

Zaila Avant-garde, 14, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee championship held in Lake Buena Vista, Florida today, becoming the first African American winner and only the second Black champion in the bee’s 96-year history.

Avant-garde, who hails from Harvey, Louisiana, describes spelling as her side hobby. Basketball is her main extra-curricular focus — she holds three Guinness world records for dribbling multiple balls simultaneously.

https://twitter.com/BillyHeyen/status/1413316049655762944

Jody-Anne Maxwell of Jamaica, who won the bee in 1998, was the competition’s first Black champion.

This was the first Bee held since the COVID-19 pandemic forced its cancellation in 2020.

Read more: https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/31786472/louisiana-teen-zaila-avant-garde-correctly-spells-m-u-r-r-y-win-scripps-national-spelling-bee

Zaila Avant-Garde, 13, Wins National Online Spelling Bee

Zaila Avant-Garde, 13, Wins National Online Spelling Bee

By goodblacknews on August 9, 2020

[Photo: Zaila Avant-Garde via Instagram | @basketballasart)]

According to wafb.com, 13 year-old Zaila Avant-Garde, a 7th grader from Harvey, LA, beat out 88 of the best young spellers in the country to win the first-ever Kaplan Online Spelling Bee, hosted in association with Hexco Academic.

Garde, who was the 2019 New Orleans regional spelling champion, won with the word “Qashqai” (definition: a migratory Turkic-speaking people of the Zagros mountains), after a hard-fought back-and-forth with runner-up Harini Logan, a 6th grader from San Antonio, TX. Chaitra Thummala, a 5th grader from San Ramon, CA, placed third.