Montgomery Student Competes in Scripps National Spelling Bee

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A Montgomery County student is among 285 spellers competing for the title of 2015 Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion.

The preliminary rounds began Tuesday at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, and continue through Wednesday afternoon.

Raffae Aman Chowdhury, 11, a sixth-grader at Rocky Hill Middle School in Clarksburg, is among the competitors. His sponsor is the Meakem Group of Bethesda.

Chowdhury’s profile on the spelling bee site says:

“Raffae dreams of visiting Japan, the birthplace of many of his hobbies. He loves to read manga, create origami, and play video games on the Nintendo with his friends and his sister. Raffae has always had a lot of energy, and when he was younger, that energy translated into injuries that took him to the emergency room three times by the age of 4. Luckily, he now channels that energy into training in tae kwon do, playing catcher on his baseball team, and participating in STEM Club at his school, where he got to build and launch a rocket.”

The spellers’ favorite words include flibbertigibbet,onomatopoeia, schadenfreude, syzygy, tchotchke andtriskaidekaphobia.

Semifinalists will be announced late Wednesday afternoon, and broadcast live on ESPN3.

Semifinals competition is set for Thursday morning, with the championship round to be held Thursday evening. ESPN will broadcast the finals lives starting at 8 p.m. ET.

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