It’s been a pretty good week for the Aouad brothers.

 

Last weekend Wabash College junior Emmanuel Aouad competed at the NCAA Division III Men’s Outdoor Track and Field Championships at Marietta College in Ohio. The 110-meter hurdle specialist for the Little Giants earned his first trip to the Nationals after breaking the Wabash record in the event one week earlier in a last chance meet at North Central College. Eman posted a time of 14.68 at that meet to take a place among the field at the Nationals. He finished 14th overall at Marietta in his first experience.

 

This week Emmanuel became a spectator and cheerleader for his 13-year-old brother, Kennyi. The younger Aouad was competing for the third time in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. The Otter Creek Middle School eighth-grader, nicknamed “sardoodledom” after overcoming a giggling fit to spell that word correctly at the 2007 competition worked his way into this year’s finals. Aouad finished sixth after misspelling palatschinken, a thin Central European pancake often eaten for lunch or dinner.

 

The younger Aoaud, a 91st-place finisher in 2008, was also selected to speak to the 292 fellow spellers prior to the beginning of the national competition on May 27.

 

Emmanuel and Kennyi were shown together during a pre-recorded piece on the ABC finals telecast Thursday night. Each time Kennyi spelled a word correctly, the cameras would cut away to Eman and his mother, Salamatu Adama-Aouad, who were seated on-stage to the right of the final 11 spellers.

 

The television broadcast quickly became the Kennyi and Emmanuel Aouad Show. Kennyi would spell a word correctly, and the network would cut to Eman. The elder Aouad would give a thumbs-up and with a huge smile showing the support and pride in his brother’s accomplishments, would point to Kennyi. At one point, reporter Erin Andrews interviewed Kennyi, who immediately grabbed the microphone to begin to answer. Andrews chuckled and said, ““Oh, you want to take this, too? You are so confident, you are going to take my mike?”

 

Kennyi showed the same confidence his brother has shown during his three seasons as a track and field runner at Wabash. That is until palatschinken came up on the list. After misspelling the word, Kennyi immediately said, “It’s alright” before the bell sounded to notify him of his exit from the event. His smile never faded as he stepped to the right side of the stage to join Eman and his mother to watch the rest of the spelling bee.

 

Kennyi’s spelling career came to an end last night. As an eighth-grader, he was competing for the final time in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.  He will still be able to cheer his brother on next year as Emmanuel tries to earn another berth at the NCAA Nationals.

 

(Dan Steinberg from The Washington Post blogged about the Bee finalists prior to Thursday night’s event. He included comments from both brothers as Kennyi prepared for the finals. View his blog here. Steinberg wraps up the event as well, including a nice mention of Kennyi as the crowd favorite of the Bee here.)