A teenager in Louisiana has made history by becoming the first African American student to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
14-year-old Zaila Avant-garde was named the winner after she spelled ‘murraya’ correctly on Thursday.
The basketball prodigy has described spelling as a side hobby and she hopes to play in the WNBA someday.
Before the bee, Zaila and her competitors had a conversation with First Lady Jill Bide, who said: “I wanted to be here personally to tell you that the president and I are so proud of all that you’ve accomplished.”
The first lady previously attended the bee in 2009 in Washington, DC.
“In sixth grade, I was my school’s spelling bee champion. I had a chance to go to the next level, but on the day of the regional competition, I told my mother that I was sick,” she told the contestants.
“The truth was that I was too nervous to go, so I have incredible admiration for each and every one of you.”
All preliminary rounds were held virtually and only the 11 finalists competed in person at the ESPN campus near Walt Disney World in Florida.
Biden sat in the audience with the families of the spellers and watched as the contestants got selected one by one until Zaila was named the winner.
She only had trouble with the word ‘nepeta,’ a genius of Old World mints, but she still managed to spell it correctly.
Both Zaila and her opponent 12-year-old Chaitra Thummula are coached by Cole Shafer-Ray, a 20-year-old student from Yale who was the 2015 Scripps runner-up.
One person commented: “Congratulations to this young lady who obviously studied and work hard to achieve her goal.”
Another wrote: “Congratulations to her and the family. This shows that you need to put in work to get something like this and I bet the family are really proud of her.”
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