Spelling Bee champ crowned

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The winning word was "guetapens."

After two days of nail biting competition there's a new spelling bee champion.

Snigdha Nandipati won the 85th Scripps National Spelling Bee. The San Diego teen takes home $40,000.

She actually says she was familiar with the word guetapens.

"I knew it, I'd seen it before. I just wanted to ask everything I could before I started spelling."

Nandipati is a Sherlock Holmes fan and wants to be a neurosurgeon when she gets older.

According to the Merriem-Webster dictionary, guetapens means an "ambush, snare, or trap."

Two local spellers, Brett Tutton from  Watervliet and Margaret Peterson from Granger, never made it past the third round.