14-year-old girl makes spelling bee history .
The winner of this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee captured the illustrious title with the word murraya, a genus of tropical trees.
“M-U-R-R-A-Y-A” “That is correct!”
The competition on ESPN as 14-year-old Zaila Avant-garde from New Orleans, Louisiana becomes the first African-American champion. Covid forced the cancellation of last year’s spelling bee but this year’s 11 finalists got to compete in person and Zaila got to celebrate her victory on stage for the world to see. Carmen Roberts. Fox News.
Zaila Avant-garde is only the second Black student to win the spelling bee. The first was Jody-Anne Maxwell of Jamaica in 1998. Zaila is a champion in other ways. She owns three Guinness world records for dribbling multiple basketballs at the same time.