Girl, 12, is Spelling Bee’s 1st Foreign Winner

Showing only a hint of a smile, Jody-Anne Maxwell, a 12-year-old from Jamaica, correctly spelled “chiaroscurist” Thursday to win the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee.

Jody-Anne, citing “God and training” as the secret to her success, won $10,000, an encyclopedia and other prizes for spelling the word, which means an artist who works in lights and darks.

She said she would share the prizes with Bettina McLean, 12, and Haydee Maria Lindo, 11, who also came from Jamaica and who shared Jody-Anne’s spelling coach, the Rev. Glen O.J. Archer.

Jody-Anne is the first winner from outside the United States and its territories in the spelling bee’s 71-year history.

She competed against 249 contestants, ages 9 to 15, who kicked off the bee Wednesday.

For the second straight year, Prem Murthy Trivedi, 12, of Lakewood Preparatory School in Howell, N.J., finished second. He was felled by “prairillon,” which means a small prairie or meadow.