A local 12-year-old who won the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee is resting after a long day of media interviews around the country and a trip to the White House. 10 Tampa Bay spoke to Bruhat Soma who says it’s been a tremendous amount of hard work. “It's been pretty exciting to win,” he told 10 Tampa Bay. “It's been what I’ve been working for the whole past year.” Soma is Tampa Bay's newest celebrity; the middle-schooler at Turner/Bartels K-8 school in New Tampa says he's been feeling the love from the Bay area, now home to back-to-back national spelling bee champs after Dev Shah from Largo won last year. “I’ve been working 10 hours on weekends and then 6 hours on weekdays, so it's been pretty exciting that I’ve won,” Soma said. “I'm really happy. It's like a dream come true.” “I've got a lot of messages expressing congratulations, especially from the Tampa area,” he continued. “That just shows that Tampa is pretty cool.” MORE: https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/hillsboroughcounty/scripps-national-spelling-bee-winner-bruhat-soma-interview/67-3aa7abb6-5776-4e23-9c71-073122dde707 ►Subscribe: https://on.wtsp.com/youtube ►Website: https://www.wtsp.com/ ►Facebook: https://facebook.com/10TampaBay ►X: https://twitter.com/10TampaBay