Alabama Contestant Among National Spelling Bee Champions

OXON HILL, MD - In an unprecedented finish, eight contestants tied for first in the 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee Thursday. One of those winners was 14-year-old Erin Howard of Huntsville.

The record eight spellers were crowned co-champions Thursday night after each correctly spelled a word in the 20th and final round. The winners are:

• Shruthika Padhy, 13, of Cherry Hill, N.J.
• Erin Howard, 14, of Huntsville, Ala.
• Rishik Gandhasri, 13, of San Jose, Calif.
• Christopher Serrao, 13, of Whitehouse Station, N.J.
• Saketh Sundar, 13, of Clarksville, Md.
• Sohum Sukhatankar, 13, of Dallas, Texas
• Rohan Raja, 13, of Irving, Texas
• Abhijay Kodali, 12, of Flower Mound, Texas

From 2014-2016, the bee ended with co-champions, according to an ESPN report. In 2017 and last year, the bee had a written tiebreaker test of spelling and vocabulary that would be used to identify a single champion if necessary. It didn't turn out to be needed, and bee officials decided the test was too burdensome and got rid of it.

The bee's rules called for no more than three spellers to share the title. The possibility of four or more winners wasn't considered before Thursday. Paige Kimble, the bee's executive director, said bee officials developed a contingency plan for multiple champions after gauging the spellers' performance in the earlier final rounds.

"When we began to comprehend the mettle of our finalists, we began to think about what could possibly happen this evening,'' Kimble said. "We went into the evening with the plan that we executed on this evening.''

The breakdown of the final words spelled correctly Thursday night:

• Gandhasri: auslaut
• Howard: erysipelas
• Sundar: bougainvillea
• Padhy: aiguillette
• Sukhatankar: pendeloque
• Kodali: palama
• Serrao: cernuous
• Raja: odylic