By Ben Olivo | @rbolivo | Heron editor
Three weeks after winning the 2022 Scripps National Spelling Bee, Harini Logan was presented with the first Key to the Alamo award on Friday afternoon. The award is based on an original key within the Alamo collection, and was forged by a blacksmith on the Alamo grounds.
For Logan, 14, the champion’s victory tour also included a visit to the City Council on Thursday, as well as appearances on “Live with Kelly and Ryan” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Logan took the spelling bee crown in dramatic fashion, winning a lightning-round spell-off, the first in the competition’s nearly 100-year history. According to Scripps, the winning word was “moorhen,” which is a medium-sized water bird.
“I think it’s slowly sinking in, because like every event I go to, I think it becomes more and more permanent,” Logan, an eighth-grader at Montessori School of San Antonio, said in an interview in front of the Alamo. “So it’s definitely very surreal, and very fantastic. And I’m glad to be experiencing this.”
Harini was accompanied by her parents, Logan Anjaneyulu and Rampriya Logan, and her six-year-old brother, Naren. Kate Rogers, Executive Director of The Alamo Trust, Inc., and J. Alex Ruiz, the blacksmith, were also present. Ruiz has been participating in living history events at the Alamo for about a year and a half, he said.
“It’s all hand forged,” said Ruiz, who does blacksmithing as a hobby. “You know, one bar of steel, that red little round bar just stretched out into it.”
As for Harini and her next big accomplishment? She wants to write a book before she graduates from high school. She’s a fan of Roshani Chokshi, author of “Aru Shah and the End of Time,” and thinks she may want to write a book of similar ilk.
“Probably fiction and middle grade, but I haven’t settled on any particular idea yet,” Logan said.
Heron Editor Ben Olivo has been writing about downtown San Antonio since 2008, first for mySA.com, then for the San Antonio Express-News. He co-founded the Heron in 2018, and can be reached at 210-421-3932 | ben@saheron.com | @rbolivo on Twitter
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