National Spelling Bee 2009: Semifinalists

Only 41 spellers survived the first three rounds to duke it out on Thursday.

Neither of the Big Apple spellers made it, but Zachary Zagorski of Oceanside is in, as is Michael Sun of Paramus.

Their formidable opponents include Kavya Shivashankar and Sidharth Chand as well as Kennyi "The Giggler" Aouad, Keiko Bridwell, Neetu Chandak, third-grader Sriram Hathwar, Josephine Kao, Kyle Mou, Mouctika Paluri, Aishwarya Pastapur, Avvinash Radakrishnan, and Vaibhav Vavilala.

Here's Kennyi from 2007.



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