Local teenager wins runner-up at Scripps National Spelling Bee

NEW JERSEY (WABC) -- A celebration was held for a 7th grader in Jersey City on Wednesday who was the first runner-up in this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Ishaan Gupta took the competition down to the wire, correctly spelling 25 words, rattling off countless consonants and vowels in a nail-biting final lightning round of last month's competition.

He didn't win first place, but that didn't matter.

He read 600 books by the time he was 10 years old and studied the root meaning of words to spell them correctly.

Gupta is a celebrity at Middle School Four in Jersey City after finishing as a runner-up.

He thanked everyone for their support.

"Whatever I was able to achieve and will do in the future is very much due to all of you, who've helped me become who I am today," Gupta said.

He was honored by his school and classmates for representing them in a prestigious competition.

"I definitely had the mindset of a champion and I almost got there," Gupta said.

His parents gushed with pride over their son, who they knew was special from an early age.

The father and son teamed up to write a book on climate change, but his mom is the one who kept him focused.

"One thing you decide and do it and that's what I've taught him and he has that but sometimes you know as kids there's so much distraction. I tell him you set this, you chose this goal, you should be fixed on that goal," his mother Suruchi Gupta said.

This was Ishaan's second Scipps Competition.

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