Soft-spoken but brimming with confidence, Dev Shah asked precise questions about obscure Greek roots, rushed through his second-to-last word and rolled to the Scripps National Spelling Bee title Thursday night.
Dev, a 14-year-old from Largo, Florida, had his spelling career interrupted by the pandemic, then didn't make it out of his regional bee last year. He got through his highly competitive regional this year for his third and final try at the national title, and he ended up holding the trophy over his head as confetti fell.
His winning word was “psammophile,” a layup for a speller of his caliber.
“Psammo meaning sand, Greek?” he asked. “Phile, meaning love, Greek?”
He soaked up the moment by asking for the word to be used in a sentence, something he described a day earlier as a stalling tactic. Then he put his hands over his face as he was declared the winner.
Charlotte Walsh, a 14-year-old from Arlington, Virginia, was the runner-up.
Brazilian actress and writer Suzana Pires spoke with Cheddar News about her nonprofit for women, how Sharon Stone wrote a foreword in her new book and what it's like being a telenovela star in Latin America.
Melissa Marra-Alvarez, curator of education and research, and Elizabeth Way, associate curator of costume, both with the Museum at The Fashion Institute of Technology, joined Cheddar News to discuss how food and food culture impact fashion.
