• Feb. 11, 2021

    School Spelling Bee winners advance to regional competition

    School Spelling Bee Winners Five Upper St. Clair students will advance to the 71st Annual Western Pennsylvania Spelling Bee set for Saturday, March 13, 2021. This year’s event will be held virtually.

    To qualify for the regional competition, Finley Garvey, Baker Elementary School; Divya Singh, Eisenhower Elementary School; Lindsey Fitzgerald, Streams Elementary School; Raana Parchuri, Boyce Middle School; and Rohan Mehta, Fort Couch Middle School; each finished first in his/her school’s spelling bee. The school-level spelling bees, open to students in grades 4 – 8, were sponsored by the Upper St. Clair Parent Teacher Council.

    Students up through grade 8 from throughout a 26-county region will compete at Robert Morris University. The winner of the Western Pennsylvania Spelling Bee will have the opportunity to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which will take place in the summer of 2021.  

    Upper St. Clair’s school-level results are provided below.

    Baker Elementary School (grade 4)
    First Place:  Finley Garvey
    Second Place:  Hadley Treffinger
    Third Place:  Abhi Muppavarapu
    Fourth Place:  Jenny Chemoriya
    Fifth Place:  Patrick Lewis

    Eisenhower Elementary School (grade 4)
    First Place:  Divya Singh
    Second Place:  Vivek Sattuluri
    Third Place:  Anvi Vaishya
    Fourth Place:  Emily Chen
    Fifth Place:  Kaaveri Patil

    Streams Elementary School (grade 4)
    First Place:  Lindsey Fitzgerald
    Second Place:  Nathan Suchta
    Third Place:  Max Reyes
    Fourth Place:  Jack Stupar
    Fifth Place:  Mira Murthy

    Boyce Middle School
    First Place:  Raana Parchuri, grade 5
    Second Place:  Sam Cranganu, grade 5
    Third Place:  Avery Moore, grade 5
    Fourth Place:  Josh Alex-Nimal, grade 6
    Fifth Place: Ida Epshteyn, grade 6 

    Fort Couch Middle School
    First Place:  Rohan Mehta, grade 8
    Second Place:  Kesahi Mathanachandran, grade 8
    Third Place:  Juliya Chemoriya, grade 7
    Fourth Place:  Eitan Schwartz, grade 8
    Fifth Place:  Ahmed Elsaidi, grade 7

    Last year, Upper St. Clair’s Raana Parchuri, then a fourth grader at Baker Elementary, was crowned champion at the 70th Annual Western Pennsylvania Spelling Bee, which was held in March 2020 at Robert Morris University. Although Raana qualified to compete at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., the event was canceled due to the pandemic.