A record eight children were declared the co-winners of the Scripps National Spelling Bee last night (May 30th) after they got through three consecutive rounds at the end of the competition with none of them missing a word. Going into this year's competition, the rules called for at most three co-champions, but officials had to go beyond that when the competitors weren't missing words, and some suggested the words weren't challenging enough. The eight winners -- Rishik Gandharsi,
Erin Howard, Saketh Sundar, Shruthika Padhy, Sohum Sukhantankar, Abhijay Kodali, Christopher Serrao and Rohan Raja -- will each get the full $50,000 in cash awarded to the winner.