Morristown Student Eyes Title in Scripps National Spelling Bee

This isn’t Katharine Wang’s first rodeo, but it will be her last, and she’s hoping to go out on top.

The Peck School student in Morristown qualified for her fourth consecutive Scripps National Spelling Bee, which begins Wednesday with preliminaries, with finals set for Thursday night.

Due to age limits, this will be Wang’s final competition. Her best showing was a tie for 33rd place in 2013. This year’s competition has a total of 285 spellers from the United States, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, Department of Defense Schools in Europe, the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan, and South Korea.

According to Scripps, the youngest speller in this year’s competition is Cameron Keith of Colorado at age 9.

As for Wang, spelling has come naturally to her, having lived in three different countries in the last decade, attending nine different schools during that time.

According to her biography at Scripps, Wang is already fluent in Chinese, English, and German, and is currently learning French, Spanish, and Latin.

She enjoys finding out about origins of different languages and their histories, but looking forward, would like to study biochemistry in college and pursue a career in oncology.

The last winner from New Jersey was Kerry Close, of Spring Lake, in 2006. The Garden State is well-represented in 2015, with six contestants.

Pictured: Katharine Wang, student at Morristown’s Peck School, holding the Scripps National Spelling Bee trophy this week prior to the competition starting. Photo Credit: Mark Bowen / Scripps National Spelling Bee

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