(WXYZ) — When it comes to spelling bees, 23-year-old Siddharth Varanasi is a c-o-r-n-u-c-o-p-i-a of knowledge.
“I was always by myself behind the books, and I would always be reading a ton,” Siddharth said of his childhood.
The Michigan native remembers competing in local bees as a child, trying to secure that win.
“Around those years, it was a little nerve wracking just because I wanted to make it to nationals so badly. But once I got through that stage, there was a lot of relief and it was just preparing for nationals,” he said.
Siddharth ended up heading to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. — not once, but twice in his middle school days at Canton Charter Academy.
“It was a blast. It was awesome to see Washington, D.C. — had traveled a little bit just to sightsee, but this was a completely different experience,” said Siddharth.
One year, he even made it to the semifinals.
“I don't think I'll ever forget the word I lost on at nationals. It was semplice. It's an Italian word, it's a musical term. And I ended up going with two Cs in the word instead of just one,” he said.
A few earlier words, he joked, he likes more.
“The two words I got right prior to that were euryphagous and phleboclysis. So those were the two words I liked. And semplice was the one that I didn't like as much,” said Siddharth.
But spelling, Siddharth said, was always a puzzle he enjoyed solving.
“What you realize is spelling is nothing but a bunch of patterns. And when you start to recognize the patterns from words that other people receive, you can start to put two and two together, and that really just makes everything easier when going through that process,” he said.
And it’s that love of problems that led Siddharth to where he is today.
“I decided to study data analytics. And again, there's a lot of kind of parallels with spelling in the sense that data, you can derive patterns and understand, making sense of what you're seeing. So that's where I ultimately took my career journey,” said Siddharth.
He’s now doing what he loves, working in that field in Chicago — with fond memories of the Scripps National Spelling Bee — and a message to the local spellers heading to D.C. this year.
“Oftentimes the journey is equally as important as the destination. So they'll be learning a lot of life lessons just through preparing for it. And even though sometimes it may not end up how you expect it to, a lot of ... the value ultimately is, the preparation itself and what life lessons you take from it,” he said.
Siddharth added that all of the spellers should be proud to even make it to the national stage with just over 230 students competing.
“You’ll learn some of those life lessons and it'll stick with you for the rest of your life,” he said.
The spellers heading to nationals from the metro Detroit area are Angelina C. Gampala, Victor A. Andrews, Lillian Rose Wallace and Luke R. LaValley.
Only one Michigan contestant has won the Scripps National Spelling Bee in the Bee’s history. Louis Edward Sissman took home top honors in 1941; his winning word was "initials."
The preliminaries for the 94th Scripps National Spelling Bee start on May 31.
ION Plus and Bounce XL are your streaming homes for the Bee, including the Preliminaries, Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Finals! Coverage runs May 31-June 2. For more information on how to watch, click here.
