![]() ![]() "We don’t let it go way too overboard, of course. "For spelling, I usually try to do about 13,000 words (per day), and that usually takes about seven hours or so," she said. But Avant-garde, who is home-schooled, claims to have it figured out. ![]() The time commitment required to master roots, language patterns and definitions is what keeps many top spellers from seriously pursuing sports or other activities. She also won last year’s Kaplan-Hexco Online Spelling Bee - one of several bees that emerged during the pandemic after Scripps canceled last year - and used the $10,000 first prize to pay for study materials and $130-an-hour sessions with a private tutor, 2015 Scripps runner-up Cole Shafer-Ray. Of course, Avant-garde brought the same competitive fire to spelling that she shows on the basketball court. Basketball is what I do," Avant-garde said. I’m really trying to go somewhere with it. "I have some interest since I saw the two women who won the Nobel Prize in connection with CRISPR, I have some interest in gene editing," Avant-garde tells NPR.RELATED: Zaila Avant-garde breezes to National Spelling Bee win And just learning how to learn and also learning how to study for school and stuff."Īs far Avant-garde, her future could be inspired by two other female award winners, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier. "It's a really fun thing to do and it's really great for the mind. She hopes that her victory inspires African American and Hispanic girls to take up competitive spelling. "I definitely started thinking about what that might mean after round one," she says. "I think spelling probably because of the mental acuity that it takes."Īnd it's that mental acuity that helped her become only the second Black girl to win the contest and the first African American. "I always struggle with answering this question," she says. National 1st African American To Win The Spelling Bee Also Holds 3 Basketball World Recordsīut she isn't quite sure which of her accomplishments was the hardest to pull off. And then my father saw the spelling bee and stuff and asked me some words from them and was surprised at the fact that I could spell some of them." So that's definitely something I've done a lot of. "Since I was a young child, reading and words has always been something that I loved," she says. She came to it from an early appetite for books. "The airplanes some of the times have TVs in them."Īvant-garde has been doing spelling competitions for two years. "I really like going on trips and stuff and like being in the airplanes," she tells NPR's Michel Martin on All Things Considered. She's also fond of the traveling it entails. So far, one of her favorite moments was meeting track star Sha'Carri Richardson at ESPN's Espy awards. She was even honored with a parade in her hometown of Harvey, La., on Sunday.Īvant-garde is enjoying the perks of her newfound stardom. She has made rounds on morning talk shows and on Jimmy Kimmel Live! ![]() Scripps National Spelling Bee winner Zaila Avant-garde has been busy since her victory on July 8.Īlready, the 14-year-old eighth-grader has been celebrated by the likes of Barack and Michelle Obama, LeBron James and Bill Murray. She says she's enjoyed the traveling since winning the spelling bee. Zaila Avant-garde attends the 2021 ESPY Awards on July 10 in New York City. ![]()
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