Wabash junior Emmanuel “Eman” Aouad and his brother Kennyi experienced a memorable May in very different national competitions.

 Eman qualified for the first time to compete in the Division III Men’s Outdoor Track and Field Championships after breaking his school’s record in the 110-meter hurdles during a last-chance meet. He finished 14th in that event at the national meet at Marietta, then soon after found himself en route to Washington, D.C., where his eighth-grade brother Kennyi Aouad was entered in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The 13-year-old Kennyi was one of only seven spellers who advanced into the bee’s 11th round. He ultimately finished fifth – with ABC’s television cameras catching brother Eman cheering him on.

It was the younger Aouad’s third trip to the national finals, where he has become a bit of a star, even after finishing 91st at last year’s event. His nickname is “Sardoodledom,” a moniker he picked up his first year at the event when he had to overcome a giggling fit after hearing the word pronounced, then spelled it correctly.

This year, he was selected to speak to his 292 fellow contestants before the national competition began last Wednesday – less than a week after Eman’s trip to the Division III track and field nationals. He further charmed the room by finishing one successful round with a flourish of his arms, and by gamely tackling the word he couldn’t spell (“palatschinken”), saying, “Whatever that is, I’ll spell it.”

Eman appeared alongside his brother during the televised finals, first in a prerecorded piece on the ABC-TV broadcast, then each time Kennyi spelled a word correctly and cameras cut away to the cheering family seated onstage near the last remaining spellers.

The brothers, whose family is from Ghana, live in Terre Haute, Indiana – not far from Wabash’s campus in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

“He just relaxes and has fun with it,” Eman told the Indianapolis Star, who then admitted to the newspaper that Kennyi was much calmer while on stage than he was watching him spell.

“It just feels so great to be on stage with everybody watching and rooting for me” Kennyi told the Star. “It just comes naturally. I’ve always been a happy child.”