Hoosier speller among 10 best in nation

NATIONAL  HARBOR, Md. — Chalk it up to the three hours a day that 11-year-old Jashun Paluru has been studying etymology with the help of a coach.

Or the fact that the Battle Ground Middle School student has been competing in spelling bees since the first grade.

Or maybe West Lafayette’s Jashun proved himself one of the nation’s top spellers because of the calm and collected way he easily dispatched such words as “paralimnion,” “keratogenous” and “volemitol” Thursday at the 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Whatever the reasons, Jashun was one of only 10 spellers left onstage from a field of 284 who started the three-day competition.

He didn’t get knocked out until the toughest words came out. That’s when “vasopressin,” a hormone that increases blood pressure, did him in.

With the clock ticking down his two minutes to spell, Jashun asked whether there were any alternate pronunciations. There were four. He asked for the part of speech: noun. He asked for all the pronunciations and the definition to be repeated before giving it his best shot: “v-a-s-o-p-r-e-s-i-n.”

The dreaded sound of the bell signaled an error.

The problem was the word is from a trademark, meaning he couldn’t get any help from everything he knows about the rules of other languages from which many English words are derived.

“It doesn’t follow any patterns,” Jashun explained after leaving the stage while receiving a standing ovation from the crowd.

One of only five of the 10 finalists who were making their first appearance at the national competition, Jashun has two more years of eligibility.

“I’m going to be back here,” he predicted.

But first, he’s going to take some time off from studying. “A couple days,” he said. “I like learning these words.”

Since winning his regional bee in March, Jashun has been studying with Jeff Kirsch, a Spanish professor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Kirsch helps Jashun learn the patterns of different languages.  Knowing that a word such as “keratogenous,” which came from Greek, probably starts with a “k” is an advantage.

“He learns patterns very easily and remembers very well,” Kirsch said.

That’s why it was so disappointing when he got a word for which the language of origin was no help.

“It’s unfortunate that he got a word that he couldn’t figure out,” said his mother, Sumathi, who was nonetheless delighted with how far Jashun advanced.

He displayed few nerves onstage, usually keeping his hands in his pockets as he asked the pronouncer for word definitions, origins and other clues to unlock a word’s spelling.

His twin brother, Jayesh, was doing the worrying for him.

“Who else is going to be more nervous than his own family?” Jayesh explained.

Jashun was one of 14 Indiana students who qualified for the national competition, held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center just outside Washington.

Larisa Tuttle, Indianapolis, was the only other Hoosier to make it to the final day of competition.

Battle Ground 6th-grader in Spell Bee final 45

She seemed unable to wrap her tongue around “gaillardia,” which refers to a flower or plant with hairy foliage. One judge thought she was saying it correctly, and another said she wasn’t.

“Say it slowly for the judges,” pronouncer Jacques Bailly encouraged.

Her spelling attempt — “galardia” — was two letters off.

“It’s one of those words you kind of have to know to get, and I didn’t know it,” Larisa said later. “It’s an eponym, and it’s from French. I just hadn’t seen it before.”

Her father, Marc Tuttle, said the family keeps the competition in perspective by referring to the philosophy of Winnie the Pooh: "You never can tell with bees."

The 284 spellers competing in the bee ranged in age from 6 to 14 and were almost evenly divided between boys (143) and girls (141). They hailed from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as the Bahamas, Canada, Europe, Ghana, Guam, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, South Korea and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

This year's co-champions were Nihar Janga, 11, of Texas, and Jairam Hathwar, 13, of New York.

They each took home $40,000 in cash — $10,000 more than last year — along with a trophy and other prizes. Jashun won $2,000.

Indiana has had three national champions: Sameer Mishra, of West Lafayette, won in 2008; David Scott Pilarski Tidmarsh, of South Bend, won in 2004; and Betty Robinson, of South Bend, won in 1928.

Mishra attended this year’s competition, helping with social media.

“I’m helping an institution that really helped me,” he said. “I’d forgotten how much fun this is.”

A recent graduate of Columbia University who is going into investment banking, Mishra said his seven years of competing in the bee, or cheering on his sister, taught him that he could achieve anything if he set goals and worked hard.

And the interactions he had with the news media when still a shy, bookish child pushed him out of his shell.

Bee fans are unlikely to forget Mishra. There’s the constant reminder of the time in 2008 when the ballroom erupted in laughter after Mishra thought the word “numnah” he was asked to spell was “numbnut.”

“Everyone here has memorialized it,” Sameer said of the video shown multiple times throughout the competition. “I love it when they play it here.”

Michael Collins, USA TODAY, contributed to this story.

Email Maureen Groppe at mgroppe@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @mgroppe.

Battle Ground student wins regional spelling bee