Sweet victory for Cary student to win return trip to the Scripps National Spelling Bee

Victory was as sweet for Ananya Rao Prassanna as the word “bismarck” that she correctly spelled to secure the Cary student’s second trip to the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Dozens of the top spellers in North Carolina competed for more than six hours Sunday at the Carolina Panthers Regional Spelling Bee at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte. But Ananya, 12, a sixth-grader at Davis Drive Middle School in Cary, earned first place when she successfully spelled the dessert pastry.

“I was very relieved I got the word because I knew I had studied it.” Ananya, 12, said in an interview.

Four spots were secured Sunday for the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee, which will be held in May in the Washington, D.C., area. One of the coveted spots went to Reyansh Joshi, a fifth-grade student at Mills Park Elementary School in Cary, who finished in second.

‘So proud of you’

Ananya qualified for her first Scripps National Spelling Bee last year when she was living in Nebraska. She advanced to the quarterfinals, tying for 49th out of more than 230 spellers who competed from around the world.

Ananya moved to North Carolina after her father’s job was relocated. Her father, Prassanna Rao Rajgopal, said they picked Davis Drive Middle in part because of the school’s strong support for the Spelling Bee program. Michael Hokenberg, the principal of Davis Drive Middle, traveled to Charlotte to cheer Ananya on.

“Congratulations to Ananya on her NC Spelling Bee Championship this afternoon,” Hokenberg tweeted Sunday. “Pack your bags, you are off to nationals! The @DDMSBuzz and the @WCPSS communities are so proud of you!”

Ananya nailed words such as “polygenous” and “dipody” on Sunday. The spellers got so many words right that the judges used “off list” words that the contestants didn’t know about in advance.

“In the first few rounds you’re nervous,” Ananya said. “But you sort of get used to it. As the number of rounds increase, I sort of calm down.”

The next two and a half months will involve frequent studying. Ananya, who has been competing in spelling bees since the second grade, estimates she’ll spend two to three hours a day on weekdays and five to six hours a day on weekends studying.

That preparation will include some quizzing in the car ride up to the competition.

“From our side, we can just support, her,” Prassanna Rao Rajgopal said in an interview. “We can just pray for her and hopefully she can get good words.”