Hudson Valley Spelling Champ Shows Off His Skills

We spoke to the Hudson Valley spelling champion about competing in the Scripps National Spelling Bee and asked him to share some of his spelling secrets with us.

Shashwat Patel from Monroe-Woodbury Middle School spent last week competing along side the brightest spellers in the country. When asked how he was able to get all the way to the national level he explains that it all started with his interest in reading, which helped foster a love of words. It was Patel's mother who came up with the idea of getting him involved in the spelling bee. Once he participated in his first competition, Patel was hooked and began to study ways to improve his spelling skills.

The key to becoming an amazing speller, Patel says, is studying other languages. The young champion finds it easier identifying patterns in words by learning their language of origin. Root words, especially those from Latin, are a big part of deciphering the correct spelling of larger, more complicated words.

We thought we'd give Patel a chance to coach our own novice speller, Boris and Robyn Show producer Meat Sandwich. While Meat has proven to be a pretty good speller, here's what happened when he decided to match wits with the Hudson Valley champion:

This year was Patel's second and last visit to the National Spelling Bee. Since he's entering High School next year he's no longer eligible to participate in the competition. But don't let his cool demeanor fool you. The veteran speller says that even he was intimidated standing up on the big stage.

Patel described the whole experience as "pretty nerve-wracking." The Monroe-Woodbury Middle School student told us his "mind was blown" getting up to the microphone and seeing the enormous crowd and army of cameras pointed in his direction. However, through it all, Patel appeared to stay calm and collected, making everyone in the Hudson Valley extremely proud of his accomplishment.