Burns Avenue Elementary School student, Benjamin Choi, and Hicksville Middle School student, Srishti Tyagi, competed at the third annual Hofstra Long Island Regional Scripps Spelling Bee this past weekend.
Like many students, they were both nervous before the spelling bee began, but they braved the stage in complete confidence.
Choi, who didn’t make it to round two, still enjoyed his experience.
“The stage makes me nervous but it is exciting being up there,” he said.
Tyagi competed for several rounds. She spelled the words “sashimi,” “halal” and “foggara” correctly but she was knocked as the words got more difficult.
“I practice my memorization skills often and I like to practice spelling on my free time. It is fun,” she said.
The intense day began at 9 a.m. with a written exam. Students then marched onto the stage and patiently waited to be called to the microphone to spell a word at random from the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
Every student wanted the chance to compete in the nationals. The national winner last year received an array of prizes including a $30,000 cash prize, trophy and more.
About one-third of the students were eliminated after the preliminary round, which consisted of spelling one word.
