13-year-old girl from Marana wins Arizona Spelling Bee
A Pima County middle schooler outspelled 26 other students from across the state who competed at the Arizona Spelling Bee contest on Saturday in Phoenix.
Karen Opoku-Appoh, 13, from Marana Middle School, won first place at the event and will represent the state in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Maryland on June 1.
The eighth grader correctly spelled the word "passage" to obtain the victory, according to a news release from the Arizona Educational Foundation.
The second place in the contest went to 12-year-old Opal Mishra, a sixth grader from Basha Accelerated Middle School in Chandler. Mishra will also represent Arizona in June.
The Saturday event, which took place at the Madison Performing Arts Center, was the 25th year of the contest organized by the foundation.
The 27 participants were selected from among nearly 500,000 students who competed in different schools across the state, including public, private, charter, and homeschools. According to the news release, Arizona has one of the largest Spelling Bee participation rates in the nation.
Several other competitors from across the Valley took home Spelling Bee awards.
Sai Manvik Malreddy, 13, an eighth grader from Explorer Middle School in Paradise Valley won third place. Regina Rascon, 11, a seventh grader from Bogle Junior High School in Chandler was the fourth-place winner. And Alrick James, 9, a fourth grader from Estrella Foothills Global Academy in Laveen, took fifth place.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Marana 13-year-old wins Arizona Spelling Bee
