Of the 45 finalists who will be competing in the 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday, some 50 percent are of Indian descent.
The 45 finalists are among the 285 kids, emerging from some 11 million across the nation, competing in the National Spelling Bee at the sprawling and scenic Gaylord Resort and Convention Center.
Among the finalists are: Arushi Kalpande, Tejas Muthusamy, Rutvik Gandhasri, Jairam Hathwar, Shourav Dasari, Smrithi Upadhyayula, Vasundara Govindarajan, Aditi Sridhar, Tara Singh, Snehaa Ganesh Kumar, Sreeniketh Vogoti, Nihar Saireddy Janga, Aisha Randhawa, Divya Aggarwal, Alex Iyer, Shiv Sathya Dewan, Shruthika Padhy, Lipika Narisetti, Shashwat Patel and Sravanth Mohan Malla.
Indian-American kids have been dominating the competition, winning it for eight consecutive years, and all but four of the last 16 years.
Shruthika’s parents, Umashankar Padhy and Sujata Sabat, are from Odisha. His father is a graduate from UCE Burla Sambalpur in Electrical Engineering.
Shruthika has been a finalist and won multiple local, regional and national spelling bees since she began competing in kindergarten.
Shruthika has built an impressive spelling bee resume over the past six years. She has participated in a variety of spelling and vocabulary competitions at the regional and national levels.