We began with 11 Michiganders in the annual competition this week at the National Harbor outside of Washing, 9 failed to make the finals after two rounds of spelling and we were left with 2. Pretty awesome to have two Michiganders among the 40 headed into today's final round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
We were down to our final Michigander - Varad Mulay of Novi, who correctly spelled "obmutescence," which means the act of being mute or silent. In the fifth round at 11:52a, Varad spelled the word warison (a bugle call to attack) incorrectly. The other finalist, Brendan Pawlicki of Shelby Township, incorrectly spelled the word "desman." He spelled it "desmond."
Today’s final rounds began at 10a and are being broadcast on ESPN 2. After the number of finalists is cut to a dozen or fewer spellers, the Spelling Bee will be suspended until 8:30p, when it will continue tonight on ESPN.
The only Michigan winner in Spelling Bee history was in 1941, when Louis Edward Sissman of Detroit correctly spelled the word “initials.”