About 100 middle schoolers from all around San Diego County are getting ready to test their vocabularies at this year's regional Spelling Bee.
One of those spellers is Mihir Konkapaka, an 8th grader at Mesa Verde Middle School who has a love for words. He's ready to show off their extensive vocabularies, but Konkapaka has been here before. He won the 2024 San Diego County Regional Spelling Bee in 2022.And in 2023, he won again with the word"exsufflation," meaning the act of forcefully breathing out.
And so kids aren’t left in the dark, the organization gives out a study list of about 4,000 words to schools that are enrolled. Konkapaka said he goes beyond the list because knowing the root of a word makes it easier to spell it. “Let’s say I have arachnophobia. Arachno means spider and phobia means fear. So, even without knowing that arachnophobia means fear of spiders, with the knowledge of root words, I can figure that out,” Konkapaka said.“Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg,” Konkapaka said.“I’m very nervous, but I also feel confident. I’ve put in a lot of time and effort, and I’ve practiced a lot,” Konkapaka said.