In dramatic fashion, 14-year-old Texan Harini Logan became the 2022 champion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, winning a first-ever Spell-off after being reinstated into the competition following an elimination during the final word meaning round.
Harini, speller 231, is an eighth grader in her fourth and final Bee appearance. She was briefly eliminated from the competition after giving an answer for “pullulation” that judges, after conferring, decided was in fact correct.
After the Bee was down to two spellers – Harini and Colorado seventh grader Vikram Raju, speller 76, in his third year of competition – Harini had a chance to win it outright. After Vikram misspelled “caul,” "a usually heated sheet of metal or other material used to equalize pressure in making plywood and in shaping veneer to a surface," she spelled “sereh” correctly, "a fragrant grass of southern Asia." But Harini then misspelled what could have been her winning word, “drimys,” "any plant of a genus of chiefly Australian shrubs or trees having evergreen aromatic."
The top two finishers heard the bell a combined eight times before judges decided to take the competition to a Spell-off for the first time. The winner would be the person who spelled more words correctly in 90 seconds; Harini spelled 22 of the 26 words she attempted correctly. Officially, her winning word is the last word she spelled, “moorhen.”
She said she was “a bit terrified” about the process, but came to appreciate it.
“I love the dramatic flair,” Harini said. “I think it may have given me about three heart attacks in three minutes.”
Harini’s mother, Rampriya Logan, said she couldn’t be happier about the result.
“I want to have a Spell-off and I want to see you win,” Rampriya said she told her daughter. “I want the world to see her skills. I felt this was her forte. I cannot be happier than this.”
Harini said before the Finals that she was inspired to spell after watching the “cool big kids” at home on TV – and said it was “unreal” to think that she could be the “cool big kid” inspiring future spellers. After she won, she said she didn’t think her victory had hit her yet.
“I was overwhelmed for a second,” she said. “I never would’ve imagined this was how I’d win.”
Harini is a deliberate speller and said she’s interested in the journeys that words make to enter English. So the introduction of a “game show vibe” wasn’t initially her desire. But she practiced, she said, and thought it was an appropriate end, especially after she and Vikram each misspelled multiple words.
“It was definitely time for a Spell-off,” she said.
Her brother, 6-year-old Naren Logan, also thought it was neat – because his sister got the most words. He said he helps quiz Harini, and thinks that he might want to follow in her footsteps.
“She got the trophy and she, like, won,” he said of the Scripps Cup. “For her, I think it was the best because it was her lifelong dream.”
Before her victory, Harini thought she was done. It was like her heart had stopped for a second, she said – make that four heart attacks – and she said it would have been easy to lose all hope and write off her chances for the rest of the competition.
But her parents raised her to be an optimist, Harini said, and she was able to calm herself and refocus, though it would have been easy to be deterred.
“Wow, I’ve already defied the spelling bee version of death,” she said she thought. “What if I won after this?”
It was Harini’s first in-person Bee since 2019; she finished 30th that year and 31st last year, following a finish in 323rd place in her first Bee appearance, in 2018. She said she’s had a lot of support over the years, including from her parents.
“I’m elated,” said her father, Logan Anjaneyulu. “It’s so surreal. I was just sitting there in anxiety. I didn’t know where it would land.”
But Rampriya never had a doubt.
“I kind of knew this was going to be her year,” she said. “It’s God’s grace, all along.”