12-year-old Wins Delaware Selling Bee With Word ‘Phyton’

Mar 5, 2018 | Posted by Kye Parsons | Community, DelmarvaLife, Featured |

State Spelling Bee champion Maanvi Sarwadi holds her trophy with event coordinator Anne Marie Eanes Saturday. (Delaware State News/Craig Anderson)

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP/WBOC)- A 12-year-old has won the Delaware State Spelling Bee by correctly spelling the word phyton. It is defined as the “smallest part of a stem, root or leaf.”

Seventy students from across Delaware had faced off on Saturday at St. Mark’s High. The competition lasted five hours and ran through an entire 300-word contest book.

Words that students tackled included “wampum,” ”chimichanga,” ”kovsh,” ”gestalt,” ”ameliorate” and “waterzooi.”

The winner was Maanvi Sarwadi, a seventh-grader from Caravel Academy. Her victory followed 28 rounds, which the judges said was a “remarkable” amount.

Sarwadi said she used grammar rules on foreign words to take an educated guess at the word phyton.

“I almost thought it would never end,” Mannvi told WBOC media partner Delaware State News. “It’s hard to think that I might be the next one to go every time my turn come up, but it never did.”

Maanvi is already planning to study hard for her next competition: the Scripps National Spelling Bee in May.

About Kye Parsons

Kye Parsons is the web editor for WBOC. He a Wicomico County native who comes to WBOC with several years experience as a journalist on Delmarva. Prior to entering the world of multimedia, he worked as an editor and reporter for several newspapers and publications. Check out all stories by Kye.