We often tell young children that everybody is a winner – and at this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee, that was practically the case! The competition ended with eight different winners after the judges gave up trying to stump them.
Each kid had gotten through the first 17 rounds without failing when the event pronouncer determined that it couldn’t go on much longer. Instead, they would each get three more words, and any contestant who spelled their three correctly would be victorious.
It turned out to be all of them!
Unsurprisingly, this was the first time in history that the Bee has crowned so many winners. In fact, never had there been more than two winners crowned in one year.
The coolest part? There was no apparent jealousy or animosity among the co-champs. Instead, they were outwardly cheering for each other, honored to be a part of something special. Needless to say, the event made more of a splash than Spelling Bee’s typically do.
Image courtesy of Scripps National Spelling Bee (Flickr)