One Fresno family has two county spelling bee champs. Can he match his sister’s national title?

Two Fugman Elementary students battled it out at the Fresno County Spelling Bee Tuesday, with the title of champion eventually going to fourth-grader Achuth Vinay, the younger brother of 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion Ananya Vinay.

Achuth will represent Fresno County at the national competition beginning May 26 near Washington, D.C. His winning word was “bowstave,” a trimmed rod of wood made into a shooting bow, which Achuth said he knew how to spell right away.

Last year’s county spelling bee winner, sixth-grader Shiv Mehrotra-Varma, returned for another year and took home second place.

Achuth said he studied two hours a day for the competition, and that no word in particular gave him any trouble. He said he’s excited to go to D.C.

“Just to have fun,” he said.

Ken Engel, adviser for the Fugman Elementary Spelling Team, said Anyana, now an eighth-grader at Granite Ridge Intermediate in Clovis Unified, has been coaching Achuth and other members of the team. Shiv has also credited her as a coach.

Both Achuth and Shiv asked for the language of origin and alternate pronunciations of the words they were given, something Anyana said is key to winning.

“It gives you a lot of background information,” she said.

Tied for third were the two winners of the junior high written competition, Mary Clare Nadores, a seventh-grader at Our Lady Of Perpetual Help in Clovis, and Madonna Joy, an eighth-grader at Inspire Charter School in Fresno. Both Madonna and Mary Clare competed in the final round along with Achuth and Shiv.

Mary Clare and Madonna said they’ve been friends since both were students at OLPH, and each was looking forward to winning a trip to D.C. – Madonna, for the trophy, and Mary Clare, for a chance to see the musical “Hamilton.”

Mary Clare said the most difficult word she encountered in her written competition was “philately,” the art of stamp-collecting.

The spelling bee kicked off in the morning with an elementary oral competition, where 50 students from 25 districts spelled words like “feldspar” and “spaghetti.” By the final round, students were given words like “balalaika,” “intaglio” and “apparatchik.”

Coincidences happened, too: the word for Pine Ridge student Cirrus Rose was “cloud,” while another student who grabbed the mic and yelled his name for the judges was asked to spell “boldness.”

Ananya’s and Achuth’s mom said she was proud of both spelling bee champions in the family.

“He had an advantage, because he’s been watching her since he was little,” Anupama Poliyedath said.

This story was originally published March 19, 2019 at 5:08 PM with the headline "One Fresno family has two county spelling bee champs. Can he match his sister’s national title?."