{"id":377,"date":"2026-05-29T04:32:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T04:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sanfranciscomovingguide.com\/?p=377"},"modified":"2026-05-29T04:32:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T04:32:19","slug":"californias-first-spelling-bee-champion-puts-her-title-to-work-every-day-in-sf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanfranciscomovingguide.com\/?p=377","title":{"rendered":"California’s first spelling bee champion puts her title to work every day in SF"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Whenever the calendar flips to May, Dr. Raga Ramachandran knows to expect the phone to ring a little more often than usual. But the calls coming in aren\u2019t related to anything about her work in UC\u00a0San Francisco\u2019s pathology department, where she primarily studies liver and gastrointestinal diseases.<\/p>

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No, these are all tied to what Ramachandran did when she was 14 years old: become the first Californian to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee.<\/p><\/div>

Thursday is the championship round for this year\u2019s version of the spelling competition that started in 1925. It\u2019ll be the culmination of millions of spellers who mostly started at their elementary and grade schools, climbing through a variety of smaller tournaments to reach the finals in Washington, D.C.<\/p><\/div>

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Over the decades, the spelling bee has grown immensely popular, thanks to national television broadcasts and even feature films on the topic. But one person who won\u2019t be watching on Thursday night is Ramachandran.<\/p><\/div>

\u201cIt\u2019s a little nerve-racking when I do watch it live because I know how hard these kids work,\u201d Ramachandran said, adding that it\u2019s easier for her to watch highlights after the competition.<\/p><\/div>

Born in India, Ramachandran\u2019s parents moved their family around in her early childhood but settled in the 1980s in\u00a0Carmichael, a suburb in Sacramento County to the east of the state\u2019s capital. As an admittedly \u201cpretty bookish\u201d kid, she won her first spelling bee at her school in the fourth grade, then learned about the multilayered competition structure \u2014 from schools to district competitions to regional or state level and, finally, the national spelling bee.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>

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From there, she went to work, wanting to do her best in the competition. She studied old word sheets from prior years\u2019 spelling bees, found books of unique words and even used word-a-day\u00a0tear-away calendars. It led to a strong performance as a sixth grader in 1986, finishing in 36th place at the national finals. But the next year was a little different.<\/p><\/div>

\u201cAround seventh grade, it got a little out of hand for me,\u201d Ramachandran recalled. \u201cI was looking for difficult words everywhere. We would go out to restaurants, and I\u2019d write down the names of the pastas and the wines because they\u2019d ask those kinds of words.\u201d<\/p><\/div>

That year didn\u2019t go her way, leading her to \u201clighten up\u201d before her eighth grade year. She trusted her knowledge and studying skills and didn\u2019t want to overdo it. That path got her back to Washington, D.C., for the finals, and after just a handful of successful spells, she was among the final contenders \u2014 and then in the final two.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>

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In the 60 prior iterations of the Spelling Bee, a Californian had never won it. But in 1988, the final two were both from the Golden State: Ramachandran from Northern California and Victor Wang from Camarillo in Southern California. As a wire story at the time broke down, the two had a nearly hourlong final showdown. Organizers gave the duo some unbelievably tough words that both missed: balmacaan (a loose-fitting overcoat) and caoutchouc (a French word for natural rubber). Wang once quipped, \u201cWho makes up these words?\u201d and earned laughs from the crowd.<\/p><\/div>

At the time, a competitor had to spell their opponent\u2019s missed word correctly, then spell a second word correctly to win the crown. Wang missed stertorous \u2014 an adjective for a harsh sound, like a snore or gasp \u2014 but Ramachandran got it right. Then, she got the word she would remember forever: elegiacal, an adjective for poetry that is mournful or sorrowful. She nailed it for the title, taking home $1,500 and the big trophy.<\/p><\/div>

\u201cIt\u2019s one of those special moments that I will never forget,\u201d Ramachandran said. \u201cI realized there are so many great spellers at that level, and a lot of it is luck of the draw. You could know the word that the speller before you got and the word the person after you got, but you could miss your own word. That\u2019s just the nature of the competition.\u201d<\/p><\/div>

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There wasn\u2019t the national TV audience of the modern era, but there was still a media circuit for Ramachandran right after the win. She was flown to New York, going on \u201cGood Morning America\u201d with then-host Joan Lunden, a Sacramento-area native herself. She also went on \u201cThe Tonight Show,\u201d which her parents loved, on a night when Jay Leno was filling in for Johnny Carson. That love shined brightest once she returned to the West Coast, too.<\/p>

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\u201cIn Sacramento, people were very proud because I was the first person in California to win,\u201d Ramachandran said. \u201cEvery once in a while, I would go to the doctor\u2019s office, and a receptionist would recognize my name. That was fun.\u201d<\/p><\/div>

She said the buzz lasted \u201ca few weeks\u201d but faded as the summer got underway, and she began pivoting to her ambitious academic career post-bee. She only needed three years to graduate high school and started at Stanford as a 16-year-old. She got her bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees on the Farm in four years before going to Philadelphia to get a doctorate and medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. After completing her studies there, she came back out West to\u00a0UCSF, where she\u2019s been ever since. All throughout that journey, she made a point to keep the national spelling bee title on her CV and resume.<\/p><\/div>

\u201cGenerally, they say not to put anything from that far back [on there], but it\u2019s a very unique accomplishment that I am actually quite proud of,\u201d Ramachandran said. \u201cEverybody remembers the word that they missed in a certain spelling bee. I\u2019ve certainly lost enough spelling bees. I remember those words too. So it\u2019s just a great conversation starter.\u201d<\/p><\/div>

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Nowadays, Ramachandran lives in the Haight with her husband and daughter, who is graduating high school this year, and she does what she calls \u201cbehind the scenes\u201d work at\u00a0UCSF. As a surgical pathologist, she is trained to evaluate tissues that get removed in surgeries \u2014 typically smaller ones like a mole or a colon polyp, but there can also be larger ones \u2014 and study them on a microscopic level to look for diseases. She happily reports that most findings are \u201chealthy and normal.\u201d But in the event that there is something concerning, she writes reports on the next steps and, in her eyes, keeps putting her spelling bee skills to use.<\/p><\/div>

\u201cYou have to be a good writer because you have to write reports that are clear and concise and to the point,\u201d\u00a0Ramachandran said. \u201cSo I think just the practice with language and words has certainly helped me in the writing aspect of my work. I don\u2019t have to use those kinds of big words, necessarily, but it\u2019s made me think about how to communicate clearly.\u201d<\/p><\/div>

It also helps her teach the next generation, as she is UCSF\u2019s director of medical education. Some students end up finding out about her past achievements, but she doesn\u2019t have any photos or relics in her office \u2014 the trophy is back at her father\u2019s house in Sacramento. And while she is happy to talk about her own accomplishment when asked, she also brought up unprompted that her younger sister Sohini also made it to the national spelling bee, too. (Sohini is now a professor of biology and computer science at Brown University, with one very proud older sister.)<\/p><\/div>

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She also didn\u2019t tell her own daughter about it \u2014 until a trip back to Washington, D.C., revealed it on accident. In 2014, the family took a trip to the nation\u2019s capital and visited a Smithsonian museum that had an exhibit on the Indian\u00a0diaspora. Unbeknownst to Ramachandran, a portion of that exhibit was focused on Indian American spellers and featured a photo of her win from back in 1988.<\/p><\/div>

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