Schools

Fifth Grader Wins Boyce Middle School Spelling Bee

Holly Smith won the second annual Boyce Middle School Spelling Bee on Thursday.

Holly Smith, a fifth grader, was the winner of the second annual Boyce Middle School Spelling Bee.

Smith spelled "hemisphere" correctly to move on to the Western Pennsylvania Spelling Bee at Children's Hospital in March.

Smith bested 34 other fifth and sixth graders to win her school's competition. It came down to seven children in the final round held in Boyce's LGI on Thursday. In addition to Smith, the other finalists included Sahil Doshi, Adrienne Godish, Ariana Chiu, Nadith Dharmasena, Devon Garcia and Anvi Kumar.

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Doshi, also a fifth grader, took second place. Smith and Doshi competed head-to-head before Doshi was eliminated with the word "mimicking."

"You should have seen me, I was so nervous," Smith said after the competition.

Find out what's happening in Upper St. Clairwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Smith's father, Phil Smith, credits the win to his daughter's favorite hobby.

"She loves to read," Phil Smith said. "We catch her waking up at night to read. She uses the book light we got her. We see the light and have to make her go back to sleep."

The PTA sponsors the local spelling bees.

"In this age of texting and spell check, it is important to recognize students that devote hours to expand their vocabularies learning the correct spelling and usage of words," organizer Kathy Petley said.

Smith will be one of four winners from Upper St. Clair representing the school district in the Western Pennsylvania Spelling Bee. The winner of the March competition will qualify for the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC. The following are the winners and finalists from other local, participating schools:

Fort Couch Middle School:
Winner: Dilanka Dharmasena
Finalists: Julia de la Parra, Deepika Narayanan, Deepikaa Sriram, Samriddh Chaudhari

Eisenhower Elementary School:
Winner: Jacqeline LeKachman
Finalists: Hashim Durrani, Riley Fitzsimmons, Duy Nguyen, Emily Zavadil

Baker Elementary School:
Winner: Shivam Patel 
Finalists: Mitchell DeCock, Hridhay Reddy, Miles Koziol 


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