The winning word of the 2022 Scripps National Spelling Bee was “moorhen,” defined as the “female of the red grouse.” Credit: Screen Capture: Twitter / Timothy Burke

After an intense 90-second “spell-off,” an eight-grade student from the Montessori School of San Antonio was named champion of the 2022 Scripps National Spelling Bee, according to USA Today.

San Antonio middle schooler Harini Logan, 14, won the prestigious competition Thursday night after correctly spelling “moorhen,” a word defined as “the female of the red grouse.” That earned her victory over 15-year-old Vikram Raju.

The competition entered the rapid-fire tiebreaker after both Raju and Logan misspelled two words in a row in rounds 13 and 18. Both had 90 seconds to spell as many words correctly as possible. Logan racked up 22, while Raju only managed 15.

Logan’s journey to becoming a national spelling bee champ was full of twists and turns, according to USA Today. The student had already made it to the competition four times before and almost didn’t get past the “word meaning” round of this year’s bee.

That round, first introduced during the 2021 competition, discourages competitors from simply memorizing the spelling of words by asking them to also supply their definitions, according to USA Today. Logan was almost eliminated after judges initially rejected her definition of “pullulation” — a decision that was later reversed.

Logan took home a $50,000 cash prize, the Scripps Cup Trophy and awards from Merriam-Webster and the Encyclopedia Brittanica, USA Today reports.

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This article appears in Jun 1-14, 2022.

Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...