Word: Vikram Raju is second to none for his passion for learning

Epaulement. Toquilla. Parison.

Those are some of the words that Vikram Raju of Aurora spelled in the lightning-round tiebreaker of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, where he reached second place in a competition that initially included 11 million students.

The final 234 competitors gathered last week for the national competition in Washington, D.C. where Harini Logan, an eighth grader from San Antonio, came away with the grand prize. 

 “It was very surreal, and we are so proud of him for coming this far,” said Raju’s mother Sandhya Ayyar.

Raju, who just completed seventh grade at Aurora Quest K-8, competed at the nationals in 2019 and 2021 as well, where he tied for 51st and 21st place respectively. He was one of three Colorado students to make it to the bee this year along with Tejas Raman and Zoe Keith of Boulder, who tied for 23rd and 32nd place.

Raju said that from a very young age he was interested in word patterns, and what made words sound the same even when they’re spelled differently. He won his first school spelling bee in third grade. He started to take spelling seriously in sixth grade when he won the Colorado State Spelling Bee.

He studies by learning root words and analyzing language patterns to piece together how words from different origins are spelled. His favorite word is the tongue-twisting “Houyhnhnm,” a fictional race of intelligent horses from Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels.” On school days he usually studies for two to three hours, and four hours a day on weekends.

“It’s a lot of hard work and studying that you have to put in, but it’s really worth it,” he said.

The 2022 bee was the first fully in-person bee since the start of the pandemic, and Raju said that it was definitely his favorite so far. He especially enjoyed getting to make friends with so many other kids who loved spelling as much as he does. 

When it started, Raju didn’t have any expectations for how far he would make it in the competition.

“I just wanted to go in and try my best and have fun,” he said.

Watching the competition was nerve-wracking, Ayyar said. She couldn’t imagine how stressful it was for him, because just watching him spell was hard for the family. At one point his younger brother, Vedanth, got so anxious he had to leave the room.

“He was like, ‘I cannot watch this, I’m going to leave the auditorium,’” Ayyar said. “And other people in the audience were like ‘please give him a hug,’ and I’m like, I need a hug!”

As the week went on, Raju moved up higher and higher, making it through the quarterfinals and then the semifinals.

In the finals he made it through 11 rounds, and then after he and Logan each misspelled several words in a row the competition moved to a spell-off tiebreaker, where each contestant had to try and spell as many words correctly as possible in 90 seconds.

It was the first time in Scripps history that the spell-off was used, after a number of the previous years have had co-champions (the 2019 bee ended in an eight-way tie). Raju spelled 15 words correctly in the allotted time to Logan’s 21. Initially, the defeat was a blow.

“I was just an inch away from victory, so I did feel really disappointed in that moment,” he said. “But after that I kind of realized that it’s not the end of the world, and I still did really great.”

Raju still has one more year of eligibility and said he definitely plans to come back to nationals in eighth grade, but he isn’t going to pressure himself.

“I just want to give it one last chance and see how far I can get without any expectations,” he said.

His parents praised him for his upbeat attitude.

“We left it to him if he wants to continue his spelling journey; it takes a lot of time and effort,” Raju’s father, Srikanth Raju, said. “He’s not the type who dwells too much on the results because he just loves to continue the spelling journey.”

Raju received a $25,000 cash prize for coming in second, which will arrive in the mail soon. He said he plans to save part of the money for college, where he hopes to study science or medicine, and donate part of it to causes he cares about, such as environmental issues and teenage mental health and addiction (and maybe save a little bit for something fun). 

After the finals, Raju had the opportunity to meet Jacques Bailly, the official pronouncer for the spelling bee and a Colorado native, and to tour the White House, which he said was an amazing experience. The family also went sightseeing in D.C., where they visited the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and the Planet Word museum, which Raju missed out on going to with other contestants during the week of the competition because he was too busy studying. 

Raju made quite a splash in D.C., Ayyar said. People recognized him on the street and asked him for photos and autographs. He even got a shout-out on the flight home. He’s getting plenty of recognition in Aurora, too, and he will be honored this month by the Aurora Public Library, Aurora Public Schools and the mayor’s office.

After the competition, the rest of the summer will be comparatively relaxed for Raju, who enjoys playing the piano, rooting for the Nuggets and going on hikes with his family when he isn’t spelling. He’s participating in a space-themed summer camp at the University of Denver and later in the summer the family will be traveling to India to visit relatives for the first time since the pandemic began, where there is sure to be another party in his honor.

And then at some point, the flash cards, dictionaries and other studying tools will come back out. But no matter what happens in the future, Raju already has a lot to be proud of.

“Whatever happens next year, I’m just really glad to have made it this far,” he said.