Boulder speller headed to Scripps National Spelling Bee
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Blanche and Derek Li at the Boulder Valley School District Regional Spelling Bee on Saturday. Photo: BVSD
Derek Li, a seventh grader at Boulder's Summit Middle School, secured a spot in the Scripps National Spelling Bee by winning the Boulder Valley School District Bee last weekend.
The latest: Derek correctly spelled "caveola" to clinch the BVSD title on Saturday, and will represent Colorado in Washington, D.C., along with Fort Collins sixth grader Nikhil Ganta.
- "Caveola" is not, as it turns out, fancy fish eggs.
- A caveola, according to BVSD, is "a flask-shaped invagination of a cell's plasma membrane that is involved especially in endocytosis by pinching off and forming vesicles in the cytoplasm."
- Um, are we allowed to get definitions on the words in the definition?
Fun fact: Derek has a good person to lean on for advice: his older sister, Blanche, who represented BVSD at Scripps last year.
- Blanche was done in by "taqueria," so obviously the strategy this year for Derek is to eat a lot of tacos in the next few months.
Honorable mention: We know the spelling bee is not a fashion contest, but I've got to give a shoutout to my guy Zane for this look.
What we're watching: Derek and Nikhil will head to D.C. for the Scripps National Spelling Bee starting May 26.