Sunjack Jesun, second from left, receives the trophy of The Daily Star Spelling Bee contest. The Daily Star Editor Mahfuz Anam, left, Director of Channel i Shykh Seraj, third from left, MD of Fast Group of Companies Hafiz Ahmed, fourth from left, Director Marketing of GSK Consumer Healthcare Soumendra Das, handing over the trophy, DGM of MetlifeAlico Syed Hammadul Karim, second from right, and CEO of Champs21.com Russell T Ahmed, right, were also on stage to congratulate this year’s best speller of the country.
Sunjack Jesun, class-X student of St Joseph Higher Secondary School, Dhaka, has been crowned champion of this year’s The Daily Star Spelling Bee.
The finale, held in front of a capacity audience in the capital’s Bangabandhu International Conference Centre, was aired last night on Channel i.
The competition among six finalists was neck-and-neck even until the last buzzer word. Sakib Aleem of Academia Dhaka finished as the 1st runner up, trailing Sunjack by narrowest possible margin, 10 points.
Sunjack had been a part of this competition during its inaugural edition in 2012, where he made waves for getting the second highest score in the Online Spelling Bee game. But he was knocked out in the Divisional Round.
This year, he made a much more concerted effort to improve his spelling. “I learned more words from the dictionary and watched last year’s TV episodes to prepare for this year,” he said.
The Spelling Bee of this season has seen an increase in participation with the number of contestants reaching over 2 lakh — more than double that of last year.
Editor and Publisher of The Daily Star Mahfuz Anam, Director and Head of News of Channel i Shykh Seraj, Managing Director of Fast Group of Companies Hafiz Ahmed, DGM of MetlifeAlico Syed Hammadul Karim and CEO of Champs21.com Russell T Ahmed were present at the Spelling Bee grand finale among others.
Source: The Daily Star