88th Scripps National Spelling Bee

88th Scripps National Spelling Bee
Date	May 24–28, 2015
Location	Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland
Winner	Gokul Venkatachalam Vanya Shivashankar (co-winners)
Residence	Chesterfield, Missouri (Venkatachalam) Olathe, Kansas (Shivashankar)
Sponsor	St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Venkatachalam) The Olathe News (Shivashankar)
Winning word	nunatak /scherenschnitte
No. of contestants	283
Pronouncer	Jacques Bailly
Preceded by	87th Scripps National Spelling Bee
Followed by	89th Scripps National Spelling Bee

The 88th Scripps National Spelling Bee was held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland from May 24–28, 2015. Students competed for a prize valued at $38,600 coming from various companies.

For the second year in a row the outcome was a tie, with Gokul Venkatachalam and Vanya Shivashankar ending up as co-winners once the Bee's dictionary was emptied. Vanya was the first sibling of a previous winner to win; her sister Kavya won in 2009. Vanya Shivashankar from Olathe, Kansas (in her fifth appearance at the Bee and Gokul Venkatachalam from Chesterfield, Missouri (who finished third the prior year) won the bee, the thirteenth of the past seventeen bees to have an Indian-American champion. Other finalists included Cole Shafer-Ray, Snehaa Ganesh Kumar, Siddharth Krishnakumar, Dev Jaiswal, Tejas Muthusamy, Paul Keaton, Sylvie Lamontagne, and Siyona Mishra.

There were 283 spellers this year. 285 were scheduled to participate (2 did not attend), 146 girls and 139 boys, ranging from age 9 to 15. 67% attended public schools. Forty-nine spellers from the original field made it to the final day of competition.

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