Arvind Mahankali, a 13-year-old speller from Bayside Hills, N.Y., won the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee, held at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Md., May 30. This year was his fourth consecutive trip to the Scripps National Spelling Bee. He placed ninth in 2010 and finished in third place in both 2011 and 2012. Of all the words he’s seen and spelled, his favorite so far is “sardoodledom.”

Arvind was named the Scripps National Spelling Bee champion in the 16th round after correctly spelling the word “knaidel,” which is defined as “a dumpling.”

He represented New York-based Daily News in this year’s competition. An eighth-grade student at Nathaniel Hawthorne Middle School 74 in Bayside, N.Y., this was the fourth consecutive Scripps National Spelling Bee in which Arvind competed. He finished in third place in both 2011 and 2012.

At the second place was 13-year-old eighth-grader from Barrington Middle School, Pranav Sivakumar, of Tower Lakes, Ill., representing Lake County Regional Office of Education. This is Pranav’s third consecutive appearance in the Scripps National Spelling Bee; he tied for 27th place in 2011 and for 22nd place in last year’s competition.

Seventh-grader Sriram Hathwar, 13, of Painted Post, N.Y., who attends Alternative School for Math & Science, took the third place and represented Corning Rotary Club, Corning, N.Y. Sriram’s first time competing in the Scripps National Spelling Bee was in 2008, and he tied for 37th place in 2009 and for 6th place in 2011. In 2011, he delivered a talk on his Bee experiences at the TEDx Chemung River event in the Southern Tier of New York, where he lives with his family.

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(Above, from left): Pranav Sivakumar, Sriram Hathwar and Arvind Mahankali at the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee Finals, in National Harbor, Md., May 30.. [Photo: Flickr | Scrippsbee]

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Rich Boehne, chairman, president and CEO of The E.W. Scripps Company declared Mahankali the national champion and awarded him the engraved Scripps National Spelling Bee Championship trophy immediately after the winning word was correctly spelled in a championship final that lasted 16 rounds.

“Congratulations to Arvind, who captivated the world by mastering some of the most difficult words in the English language and thrilled us all in becoming the 2013 national champion,” Boehne said. “The Scripps National Spelling Bee is truly a national treasure and we take great pride in seeing these young leaders rise to the occasion. They are rewarded for their dedication and commitment to improving their spelling and language. Those skills will last them far beyond this academic contest.”

The spelling competition began May 28 with 281 competitors who qualified to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee by winning locally-sponsored bees.

With more than 11 million spellers starting at the local level, the Scripps National Spelling Bee is the nation’s largest and longest-running educational program of its kind. The competition is administered on a not-for-profit basis by Scripps, based in Cincinnati.

As the national champion, Arvind received a $30,000 cash prize along with the engraved trophy from Scripps; a $2,500 U.S. savings bond and complete reference library from Merriam-Webster; and $2,000 of reference works from Encyclopedia Britannica.

Interested readers can view the round-by-round results at spellingbee.com.