15 elementary students participate in district spelling bee

Article and photos by Vivek Chotai, MUSD Student Board Representative

Ari Philip from Sinnott won this year's district spelling bee against 14 other elementary students with the final word "pectoral" on January 15 at Rose Elementary School. Katie Yu from Weller followed for second place and Jadon Tran from Rose placed third. Philip and Yu are advancing to the Santa Clara County Office of Education's fourth annual County Spelling Bee on March 16.

Other participants included Aditi Nair (Pomeroy), Abhay Raghavendra (Pomeroy), Surabhi Kar (Pomeroy), Brianna Nguyen (Rose), Amruta Joshi (Rose), Manav Rana (Sinnott), Parnika Sadhu (Sinnott), Namit Jain (Weller), Pauline Quebengco (Weller), Joshua Chang (Zanker), Daksh Sharma (Zanker), and Daniel Xu (Zanker).

Overall, the students had an impressive vocabulary, with over 300 words tested.

Here’s a feel of some of the words the students were able to spell correctly:

• auf wiedersehen
• clichés
• Xanadu
• pad thai
• armada
• gondolier
• felicitously
• galette
• unguents
• execrations
• Leipzig

Here are some of the words that eliminated this year’s contestants:

• wool
• clumsy
• extricates
• galleon
• prog
• fascist
• asseveration
• jacquerie
• pulsatile
• hackneyed
• marjoram