How Does South Windsor Spell 'Awesome'? K-E-S-H-A-V

Like many writers, Keshav Ramesh, the author of 11 books, likes to play with words.

Unlike most writers, Ramesh is a 10-year-old fourth grader at Eli Terry Elementary School in South Windsor.

And while Ramesh may not have cracked the bestseller list just yet, his love of words did take him to Washington, D.C. last weekend for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Ramesh was the youngest boy at the bee, which had 281 spellers from the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands and Department of Defense Dependents Schools in Europe; as well as the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan and South Korea.

And he acquitted himself quite well, correctly spelling his two words on stage - “misogynist” and “Proteus” - only to be tripped up on the computer vocabulary portion when he could not define “repoussage,” among others.

“If I got that right, I would have gotten to the semifinals,” he said in an interview right after he was honored at the Town Council’s meeting on Monday evening.

Ramesh qualified for the national spelling bee by winning the South Windsor Public Library bee. Children’s Librarian Sandy Westbrook on Monday credited Town Councilor Cary Prague with initiating the spelling bee program several years ago.

Ramesh prepared for the nationals by studying the list of words that the sponsors gave him. Otherwise, he reads a lot, namely the Harry Potter books and the Theodore Boone series, which features a young character written by John Grisham.

Ramesh said that the experience left him “a little weirded out” being one of the youngest competitors at the national spelling bee. But he said that the experience was fun and, even if all of it wasn’t enjoyable, “I feel I should do it; I should represent my town; I should be unique.”

And Ramesh is nothing if not unique.

Indeed, in addition to the 11 books that he’s written for the Amazon Kindle - including a series featuring a character named Tifhalt Stimpson, a 10-year-old who in one tale wins the national spelling bee - Ramesh also loves to act.

“I love being on stage,” he said.

His two favorite words are "pneumonoultramicropicsilicovolcomoccniosis" - which Ramesh says is the fourth-longest word in the dictionary (it’s a lung disease) - and "zygosaccharomyces" - a genus of yeast.

Keshav’s mother, Sowmya Ramesh, said that the spelling bee was a terrific experience where the family enjoyed a barbeque and went site seeing.

“We got to know new people and we made a lot of new friends,” she said. “We met kids who are like [Keshav].”

Competitors can take years before they progress deep into the later rounds of the spelling bee.

This year’s winner, 13-year-old Arvind Mahankali of Bayside Hills, N.Y., overcame two consecutive years in which he tripped up on words of German origin to win by correctly spelling … the German word “knaidel.”

Keshav said that Mahankali said, “My German curse has turned into my German blessing.”

Regardless of whether Keshav continues to compete at the national level, his parents are proud of him, as well as thankful for the town’s support.

“We’re very grateful the South Windsor Public Library and the town for supporting this,” said Keshav’s father Ramesh Sankar, who also thanked Prague “for his enthusiasm and for getting us excited about this.”