A Bentonville sixth-grader won the Benton County Spelling Bee on Saturday for the fourth straight year.
Pavani Chittemsetty correctly spelled “truss” to win the spelling bee in 23 rounds, according to Kristy Brown, who coordinated the contest. Truss means to prepare for cooking by binding the wings or legs of a chicken or other bird close to its body.
Pavani, 11, attends Northwest Arkansas Classical Academy in Bentonville. She will make her fourth trip to the state spelling bee in Conway on March 10.
Pavani won the state bee in 2016 and represented Arkansas at the Scripps National Spelling Bee when she was a fourth-grader. She got through the first three rounds before being eliminated.
Forty-two Benton County schools were represented in Saturday’s spelling bee, held at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville. Nicholas Robinson, a sixth-grader at Elm-wood Middle School in Rogers, was runner-up. Alyssa Wang, an eighth-grader at Haas Hall Academy in Bentonville, finished third.
The Washington County Spelling Bee will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at Lynch Middle School in Farmington.