Tampa's Top Speller Falls In Scripps' Round 2

TAMPA, FL — Ammaar Mohammed almost didn’t compete in the Tampa Bay Spelling Bee Collaborative's  regional contest for entry into the 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

After all, his New Tampa school, the Bayaan Academy, is a relatively new homeschool cooperative. While plans are in the works to launch a full-time school next year, that is in the future.

Even so, Magda Elkadi Saleh, the school’s director, felt competing would be good a good experience for her students.

“We kind of threw our spelling bee together,” Saleh said.

Ammaar excelled first in the school-based bee. Then he shined at the regional contest, staged in St. Petersburg, earning him the right to compete at the national level.

“He’s just a very bright young man,” Saleh said.

Ammaar traveled to National Harbor, Md., this week to compete against 284 other top spellers across the country. He made it past a round one written competition on Monday.

Tuesday’s round two came, however, and the 12-year-old with dreams of someday working for Microsoft hit a stumbling block: the word “alpargata.” Ammaar spelled it “alpergata,” Saleh said, knocking him out of the running in day two of the competition.

Substituting an “e” for an “a” in the word that describes a type of shoe (light canvas with plaited fiber soles) doesn’t diminish Ammaar’s accomplishment one bit, Saleh said.

“We’re thrilled,” she said. “He’s our champion.”

Saleh said she launched the spelling bee for students simply to provide them the experience. It’s about more than memorizing the spelling of words, she said. It's also about developing the confidence and poise required to stand on a stage and compete in front of a packed audience. The skills developed, she said, will help Ammaar and other students in college interviews, job interviews and life.

“It’s an amazing experience,” she said.

The spellers selected to compete in the Scripps’ contest are among the best of the best, ranking among the top 0.000026 percent of the more than 11 million students who participated in local events.

They come from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Department of Defense Schools in Europe. Eleven spellers represent the Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan and South Korea.

The competition continues through Thursday.

Photo of Ammaar Mohammed by Mark Bowen/Scripps National Spelling Bee

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