{"id":2965,"date":"2021-07-22T17:09:20","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T17:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localtalkweekly.com\/?p=2965"},"modified":"2021-07-22T17:09:34","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T17:09:34","slug":"icymi-spelling-bee-crowns-first-ever-african-american-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/localtalkweekly.com\/index.php\/2021\/07\/22\/icymi-spelling-bee-crowns-first-ever-african-american-champion\/","title":{"rendered":"ICYMI: SPELLING BEE CROWNS FIRST EVER AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHAMPION"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the most prestigious competitions for youth saw history made on July 8, with a winner who does more than spell words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Zaila Avant-garde correctly spelled the world \u201cMurraya\u201d to take the Scripps National Spelling Bee championship back home to Harvey, Louisiana. The 14-year-old became the first African-American winner of the Bee, and only the second Black person, after Jamaican-born Jody-Anne Maxwell won in 1998.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her exploits even got the attention of President Joe Biden, who tweeted, \u201cCongratulations, Zaila! We\u2019re all so proud of you. I have a feeling this isn\u2019t the last time you\u2019ll be making history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here\u2019s the amazing thing; spelling is not even Avant-garde\u2019s best ability, as she is a talented basketball star who owns three Guinness World Records for dribbling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the way, a &#8220;Murraya&#8221; is a genus of tropical Asiatic and Australian trees. Now you know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most prestigious competitions for youth saw history made on July 8, with a winner who does more than spell words. Zaila Avant-garde correctly spelled the world \u201cMurraya\u201d to take the Scripps National Spelling Bee championship back home to Harvey, Louisiana. The 14-year-old became the first African-American winner of the Bee, and only [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-world-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>ICYMI: SPELLING BEE CROWNS FIRST EVER AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHAMPION -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Zaila Avant-garde correctly spelled the world \u201cMurraya\u201d to take the 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