DALLAS — Abhijay Kodali, a 12-year-old 6th grader at McKamy Middle School in Flower Mound, won the 61st Annual Golden Chick Dallas Regional Spelling Bee in Dallas Saturday after scoring a perfect score on a written test, beating out the final three other contestants, according to a news release.
Saturday's spelling bee started with 24 students from north and east Texas battling it out over eight rounds of spelling challenges. After the final four were selected, they were given a 25-word written test to see who would become the winner.
Kodali got 25/25 right, but there were two students who tied for second with a score of 24/25: Rojan Raja, representing the Dallas County Public Schools system, and Sohum Sukhatankar, representing the Dallas County Private Schools system. All three will be going on to represent Dallas in the 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee May 26-31 in National Harbor, Md.
Kodali was the co-winner of last year's Dallas Regional Spelling Bee and placed third at last year's Scripps National Spelling Bee. Sukhatankar won the 2017 Dallas Regional Spelling Bee and also competed at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2018, finishing 25th. Raja placed 10th at the national bee last year.
Todays’ 61st Annual Golden Chick Dallas Regional Spelling Bee will be broadcast on WFAA-TV, Channel 8, on Saturday, March 16 at 12 p.m.
