College Station student advances to Scripps National Spelling Bee

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) -Aarav Sargurunathan, a seventh grader at Wellborn Middle School in College Station ISD, is the champion of the 2024 Central Texas Spelling Bee sponsored by Rapoport Holdings, LLC.

His winning word was “Requiem”, meaning a grand musical service or hymn in honor of the dead.

The competition involving 33 spellers from 24 area schools lasted eleven rounds.

Spellers competed at McLennan Community College in Waco on Saturday, March 23. However, the competition actually started on Tuesday, March 19 as 80 spellers from 43 schools took a proctored online qualifying test to determine who advanced to Saturday’s bee.

Spellers studied “Words of the Champions,” the 4,000-word list provided by the Scripps National Bee, to prepare for the competition.

Sargurunathan now advances to compete in the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee this summer near Washington, D.C.

The semifinals on May 29 and the finals on May 30 will be televised on ION.

In addition to qualifying for the national competition, Sargurunathan also wins these prizes:

• Expenses-paid trip for himself and a parent/guardian to compete in the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee and participate in Bee Week activities at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, from the Rapoport family

• The Samuel Louis Sugarman Award is a 2024 United States Mint Proof Set provided by Jay Sugarman, chairman and CEO of iStar Financial, in honor of his father. Sargurunathan will receive the prize in the summer.

• Britannica Online Premium is a one-year subscription for the premier online resource from Encyclopædia Britannica.

• Merriam-Webster Unabridged Online is a one-year subscription for the official word source for all levels of competition for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

• Epic Family is a one-year subscription for the world’s largest digital library for kids with access to 40,000+ kids’ books, videos and audiobooks.

• Tynker is a one-year home subscription for a leading K-12 creative coding platform plus eight live, 1-on-1 online coding classes.

Sargurunathan was the runner-up in last year’s Central Texas Spelling Bee.

“It was great to see Aarav back at our competition this year and to see his persistence rewarded with a first-place finish and advancement to the national competition. All of the spellers were great representatives of their schools,” said Jo Ann Turner, Regional Spelling Bee Coordinator.