82nd Scripps National Spelling Bee

82nd Scripps National Spelling Bee
President Barack Obama greets Kavya Shivashankar, left, the 2009 Scripps Spelling Bee winner, and her family in the Oval Office, June 3, 2010.
Date	May 26-29, 2009
Location	Grand Hyatt Washington, Washington, D.C.
Winner	Kavya Shivashankar
Age	13
Residence	Olathe, Kansas
Sponsor	The Olathe News
Sponsor location	Olathe, Kansas
Winning word
No. of contestants	293
Pronouncer	Jacques Bailly
Preceded by	81st Scripps National Spelling Bee
Followed by	83rd Scripps National Spelling Bee

The 82nd Scripps National Spelling Bee took place between May 26, 2009, and May 28, 2009, and involved 293 participants.

The winner was Kavya Shivashankar. Her winning word was . She was sponsored by The Olathe News. She won $35,000 in cash and more than $5,000 in prizes. The runners-up were Aishwarya Pastapur, who misspelled , and Tim Ruiter, who misspelled . This was Kavya's fourth appearance in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Six of the top ten spellers, including the winner, were Indian-American.

The standings were as follows:

The Championship Finals aired live on ABC from 8:00 PM to shortly after 10:00 p.m. EDT and were hosted by Tom Bergeron.