A lot of pride and excitement Tuesday at Francis Parker School, after one of its 7th graders made an impressive run at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Snigdha Nandipati received a hero's welcome during a school assembly. Nandipati was one of 41 students to make it to the semi-final round of the competition in Washington D.C.
Pretty impressive, since a total of 11 million students nationwide competed in local and regional qualifying events.
Nandipati was the driving force behind starting a spelling bee competition on the Francis Parker campus.
"My first spelling bee was at the end of third grade and I got second place," Nandipati said. "I wanted to try and improve my spelling -- I used to be a bad speller."
Her achievements are an inspiration for her fellow classmates.
Nandipati was eliminated from the competition when she misspelled the word "kerystic."
"I was actually a little disappointed because that word was actually on my list, but I went too fast I rushed through the spelling and I didn't think about it enough, so that was kind of disappointing," Nandipati said.
Nandipati and her father would spend about two hours per day practicing her spelling words.
The winning word for this year's spelling bee was "cymotrichous," a Greek word meaning wavy-haired. Sukanya Roy from Pennsylvania won the competition.
