Arkansan Wins Spelling Bee Via <i> Xanthosis</i>
Justin Tyler Carroll, 14, an Arkansas eighth-grader whose hobbies include solving difficult word puzzles, correctly spelled xanthosis Thursday to win the 68th annual National Spelling Bee.
Grabbing the microphone with both hands, he spelled the winning word--which means a discoloration of the skin--without pausing.
“It’s like a dream,” Justin said of his win. “It’s just unreal.”
In the closing rounds, competitors dropped over such tongue-twisters as frugivorous (feeding on fruit) and smaragdine (yellowish green).
“I tried to be optimistic throughout that I would get words I knew,” said Justin, who lives in Wynne, Ark., but represented Memphis, Tenn., in the contest.
Marjory Lavery, a 13-year-old home-schooler from Copley, Ohio, was runner-up. She was eliminated after misspelling cappelletti, a type of pasta.
She later said her chances might have been better if she knew more about Italian cuisine, saying: “Pizza’s as Italian as I get.”
A record number of children, 247, participated in the annual bee, fielding 835 words.
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