![\"Collier](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776054013_412_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nHow do you spell orthographer? That\u2019s what you call a person skilled in spelling correctly, and that describes two Southwest Florida seventh graders. <\/p>\n
Nihal Gelli from Lee County schools and Nixon Diveley from Collier County schools came out on top in their district spelling bees, open to sixth, seventh and eighth graders.<\/p>\n
Nihal, a student at Cypress Lake Middle School, won in the 13th round by spelling carabiner. That word was a relief because he knew it, but he didn\u2019t go into the bee with total confidence.<\/p>\n
“Not really confident because I knew there were people who studied for years and years to do this. \u2026 Some people here were just really prepared,” he said.<\/p>\n
He studied, but not for years. Nihal spent his spring break studying word lists every day, and he reads a lot. His favorite subject is math, because the teacher is good and he hands out treats when the students get something right. In the future, he wants to go into neurosurgery.<\/p>\n
“Well, I kind of want to get rich. And I just enjoy stuff with brains and all that.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Collier County spelling bee champion Nixon Dively<\/p>\n
Nixon Dively, a student at Pine Ridge Middle School, won the Collier County district bee on the word domiciled. He says he studied for at least six hours. And he was nervous.<\/p>\n
“I was pretty confident, but at the same time I didn\u2019t know who the other schools were going to send,” he said. “I was shaking,” he admitted.<\/p>\n
His favorite subject is Civics, but that\u2019s not his plan for his life.<\/p>\n
“I like Civics, but I’d really like to be a scientist, preferably like a quantum physicist or something.”<\/p>\n
Both boys will go on to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., the last week of May. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How do you spell orthographer? That\u2019s what you call a person skilled in spelling correctly, and that describes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-229291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}