‘You made it!’ Pines schools’ best spellers take on Miami Herald Spelling Bee
In the weeks leading up to the 86th annual Miami Herald Spelling Bee, Sabrina Duque was juggling reciting word lists with preparing the final touches to her Black History Month project.
For keeping her vocabulary varied, she credited stories on Archive of Our Own, a popular fanfiction website.
Benjamin Samuel was poring over the Bible and his favorite book series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, to freshen up his word bank, while Reuben Hibbert studied word etymology and definitions.
Khadijah Iqbal — following in the footsteps of her older sister, a former spelling bee competitor — took an old-school approach: writing down the most difficult words from the competition’s pre-approved spelling list over and over.
Myles Molina, who considers himself “naturally very competitive,” was still reminiscing on his school spelling bee win that qualified him for the regional edition.
Ronak Tirunagari, a fourth grader, was ecstatic about making the regional round at such a young age, a dream he’s had since first grade.
All six kids had one common goal: win the title of Broward’s best speller for their Pembroke Pines schools.
They were joined by 21 additional county spellers who gathered in Pembroke Pines at the Charles F. Dodge City Center’s mainstage on Wednesday, Feb. 25, in hopes of bringing the championship trophy to their school.
“My teacher was on the phone ... and she started screaming, “You made it!” Khadijah told the Pembroke Pines News, remembering her school’s reaction — Pembroke Pines Charter Elementary’s Central campus — to her qualifying. “The whole class started jumping ... they cheered me on.”
Preparations for the three-hour “Broward Bee” — the morning program of the Herald-sponsored competition, which also covers Miami-Dade and Monroe counties as part of the Scripps National Spelling Bee — begin months before spellers take the stage.
Students must top their “classroom bee,” a written spelling test, before moving on to their school-wide spelling bee, usually held in the fall, where the best speller is selected to move on to the regional event.
For Myles, who attends Franklin Academy Pembroke Pines, making it to the Feb. 25 competition was an added bonus to a more personal win: besting the 2025 Broward Bee winner, Haddi Abasi, at his school spelling bee after placing fifth the year before.
His winning word was “redress.”
“I was kind of caught off guard, because it was so easy to spell,” the 13-year-old told the Pembroke Pines News. “I’m just excited to be up there on the (regional) stage and just compete with others at my level.”
When asked to spell words such as “sewage” and “protrayal” at the regional bee, Myles invisibly “wrote” the word out on the palm of his hand, a visualization technique popularized by the Scripps contestants. The word “parsimony” took him out in the third round.
Before that, Reuben, 12 and from Franklin Academy, and Benjamin, 13 and from Pembroke Pines Charter, were bested by the words “advection” and “physicist” in the second round.
Both were applauded for their efforts by audience members and considered winners by their loved ones.
“Just have fun and enjoy the experience. ... Regardless of what the outcome is, we are proud of his accomplishment,” said Rohan Hibbert, Reuben’s father.
“It’s a fun and friendly competition,” said Santhosh Samuel, Benjamin’s dad. “We don’t really pressure him, but we encourage him to do his best. ... We are so proud of him, of what he attained.”
Ronak was eliminated toward the end of round two after mispelling “complementary,” a homynom judges warned the 10-year-old about before asking him to spell the word.
The fourth grader first fell in love with spell-downs in the first grade — when his parents showed him a video of the 2023 National Spelling Bee — and has since made it his mission qualify for the finals, held in Washington, D.C., each May.
Despite the loss, he’s confident he’ll have a chance at redemption next year.
“I‘d like to learn from how competitive (the regional bee) was to see what I can do better and also have some fun with it,” he said.
The same goes for Khadijah, who finished second to Cooper City’s Lancaster Gramer, the 14-year-old champion of the Broward Bee who will represent the county on the national stage from May 24-30.
Khadijah, 10, survived eight rounds of Wednesday’s competition, skillfully spelling out words such as “funicular,” “desalination” and “remuneration.”
In the end, a mispelling of the word “dysbarism” — a medical term to describe sicknesses from changes in ambient pressure — was what eliminated her.
Khadijah didn’t walk away empty-handed, however.
Her runner-up finish earned her a blue trophy and a memory that will last her a lifetime: learning.
“I’ve always looked at (spelling bee competitors) and thought, ‘Wow, they’re so smart. How did they do that?’” she said. “I just thought it would be a cool, fun learning experience for me.
“Even if I didn’t win, I would still be having fun and getting to explore new things every day.”
