It's the first time since their respective championships - in 1999 and 2008 - that Nupur Lala and Sameer Mishra have returned to the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Along with George Thampy, the 2000 champion and a Bee judge, the three sat down to talk about how the Bee changed them.
"Coming back, it's like Brigadoon," Thampy said. "It's a magical village where nothing can go wrong, but it's only there for a year."
The three have a complicated relationship with the Bee. All agree that it gave them new skills - everything from better study habits and achievement in standardized tests to the knowledge that success will arrive when they work hard.
But in addition to lessons in humility and the confidence that they can overcome failure, there's the matter of instant celebrity and the connection that strangers, years later, make with their accomplishment and their names.
"Sometimes I think, ‘Am I ever going to do anything else in my life that's going to get me a trip to the Oval Office and on Primetime television?'" Mishra said. "It makes me feel motivated to find the next defining moment."
Mishra participated in the Bee for three years before he won. Now, he is entering his junior year at Columbia University. The Bee helped him come out of his shell, he said, and forced him to feel comfortable being uncomfortable.
Mishra, who this year tweeted every word the spellers spelled on the @ScrippsBee Twitter page, took a hiatus from the Bee for several years. When he came back, he said, it was because he had more confidence about his own relationship with the competition.
Still, it's sometimes difficult that people know him for his past accomplishments and not for his future plans.
Lala, who also disassociated from the Bee for several years, said it can sometimes be exhausting to be defined as the champion.
"For a period of time, I ran away from the Spelling Bee," she said. "I so badly wanted to find an identity separate from it."
Lala still keeps in touch with spellers she has met, and said several who did not win the Bee have since surpassed her in accomplishment. They work hard, she said, but take nothing for granted. Lala is starting medical school at the University of Arkansas; she received a Masters in cancer biology at the University of Texas at Houston and previously worked at a neuroscience lab at MIT for several years before deciding to change her career path.
The title makes her work harder, she said, in everything from a half marathon to her education.
"I want to prove that I'm good at things other than spelling," she said. "I want to make the Spelling Bee a feather in my cap, rather than the one thing I'm remembered for."
Watching the spellers this week was "extremely emotional," she said. From her own experience - Lala finished 81st in her first Bee - she learned that the results of the Bee have nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with how hard someone is willing to work.
"You have to stay humble," she said. "There's an element of luck in everything you do."
At this point, she said, her relationship with the Bee is "all love."
"I think it's fantastic," she said. "I'm utterly grateful to the Bee. Only as I've gotten older have I realized how it's shaped me."
Thampy, who has remained involved with the Bee, said he has become much more easy going and relatable as a result of his experience. As a shy sixth grader, he never could have imagined being president of his senior class at Harvard.
The Bee participants are also the most diverse group of people he has ever been involved with, Thampy said. He keeps in touch with many former spellers and said the diversity of his group of friends enriches him in many ways.
This week, Thampy - who is currently working for the CEO of St. Anthony's Medical Center in St. Louis - learned that he would be spending next year working with Eli Lilly in their diabetes division before receiving a full ride at Stanford University's business school.
"Will I be defined as the Spelling Bee guy? I hope not," he said. "The only way to change the world is by changing yourself. I could lean on the crutch of being the Spelling Bee guy and coast that way, but I'm not that guy."
Many winners rest on their laurels, Thampy said, and it's those who aren't named champions who are often most able to turn their skills in new directions.
"A lot of people take the experience as confirmation that they can achieve at a high level," he said. "It really helped me think about the fact that I can do almost anything I put my mind to."
Thampy also said he learned that he can't judge himself against others. His validation, he said, must come internally.
"Anything else sets you up for disappointment," he said. "My sense of satisfaction comes from within."
Mishra, who is studying economics and statistics and hopes to go into finance, said he's grateful for all he learned through the Bee.
"It's why the Spelling Bee is such an amazing experience," he said. "It's been a great thing."