About 60 elementary and middle schoolers took to a Conway stage Saturday morning for 15 rounds of competition to find Arkansas' 2017 State Spelling Bee champion.
See how well you can spell these words from the Arkansas State Spelling Bee:
After three and a half hours of competing, eighth-grader Haris Rana of Fort Smith's Chaffin Junior High School reigned supreme. Without a moment of hesitation, he rattled off "c-h-a-s-u-b-l-e" (a sleeveless outer garment worn by a Catholic priest) to finally top the competition.
After receiving his prize and standing for photos with the runner-up, he quickly dialed his hometown teacher Amy Markham to share the news.
"Out of all the teachers, she was the one who encouraged me to go to the spelling bee," Rana said.
"I feel amazing. I never thought I'd win," he said.
Pulaski Academy seventh-grader Parray Faizan took second place after a slight but costly misstep in spelling "crescive" (marked by gradual spontaneous development) -- a word he said afterward he'd probably never forget.
But Faizan said his feelings of disappointment were accompanied by feelings of relief.
"Even though I didn't get first, at least I don't have that pressure of going to the national competition," he said. "I could've done better. But then again, what I got makes me feel satisfied."
Saturday marked the first time Faizan or Rana had made it to the state level after winning classroom, school and county competitions.
The state competition, held at Central Baptist College, was open to this year's winners of the various county contests, and, as such, the 60 spellers represented the diversity of the state, both racially and in the variety of Arkansas twang.
As students muscled through words including "android," "feldspar" and "internment," doting parents cheered quietly or sighed with relief as their children navigated through tricky vowels and consonants.
Some mistakes brought tears to competitors' eyes.
Rana's victory will send him to the big time in May: the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C., where he will compete on national television with almost 300 spellers.
In the past year, Rana spent about two hours a day memorizing the Scripps list of words -- before moving on to the dictionary -- repeating spellings "over and over and over again," he said.
Now, with the national contest looming, "I think I'll need to study really, really hard, because without that I won't even make it past the first round," he said as he considered ratcheting up his study time to three to five hours a day.
"This is the year where I'm actually going somewhere."
Metro on 03/05/2017