Suburban spellers take national stage Tuesday
Nine suburban students are among 26 top regional spellers from Illinois and 519 champion spellers nationwide competing in the Scripps National Spelling Bee starting Tuesday in the Washington, D.C., area.
They are: Atman Balakrishnan of Hinsdale, Brooke Danz of McHenry, Anmol Dash of Buffalo Grove, Gabriel Ennin of Plainfield, Calvin Franke of Palatine, Pranav Kollu of Algonquin, Sharanya Pastapur of Lake Zurich, Olivia Schwab of Plainfield, and Tejas Shyamsundar of Vernon Hills.
Atman, 12, a sixth-grader at Hinsdale Middle School who won the DuPage County spelling bee, is the son of a national champion.
His father, Balu Natarajan, competed in the national spelling bee twice before becoming the 1985 champion, and he later served as a judge.
Brooke, 11, a fifth-grader at Riverwood Elementary School in McHenry, won the McHenry County spelling bee after 31 rounds of tough words.
Eighth-graders Sharanya, 14, of Lake Zurich Middle School North and Anmol, 13, from Daniel Wright Junior High School in Lincolnshire are the two Lake County regional co-champions. Sharanya previously competed in 2017 tying for 189th place.
Gabriel, 14, an eighth-grader at Heritage Grove Middle School in Plainfield, previously competed in 2016 tying for 46th place and 2017 tying for 189th place.
Calvin, 13, a seventh-grader at Plum Grove Junior High School in Rolling Meadows, nabbed the suburban Cook County championship after 21 rounds.
Pranav, 11, a fifth-grader at Cambridge Lakes Charter School in Pingree Grove, won the Kane County bee after two hours and 62 rounds of spelling and vocabulary challenges. Olivia, 12, a sixth-grader at Murphy Junior High School in Plainfield, is the Grundy/Kendall County regional champion.
Tejas, 14, an eighth-grader at Daniel Wright Junior High School, previously competed in 2015 tying for 50th place.
Bee finals start at 9 a.m. and continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Maryland.
The event will be broadcast live on ESPN.