Our first speller, speller 1, is Sai Lakkimsetti. At the kickoff party, Sai painted his face with a dragon with blue and white scales to represent his favorite book series, Wings of Fire.
It's Sai's second Bee, and he said he was glad to go first. The first speller, he said, usually gets an easy word.
His strategy is to just ask for all the information.
Sai's word was energumen, a person possessed by or as if by an evil spirit : a demoniac. He spelled it correctly.
You can watch the spelling live this morning on the ESPN app, and later today streaming via ESPN.