Hall spelling bee champ moves on to state competition

SUWANEE - Hall County spelling bee champion Parker Ramey is headed to the state finals.

Ramey advanced by planing second in the District 3 Spelling Bee Saturday at North Gwinnett High School.

State competition will be held March 19 at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

It will feature the top 20 spellers from across the state. Each of the eight districts in the state send their top two spellers who join the four top spellers from the GISA (Georgia Independent School Association) for a final showdown to see who will represent the state of Georgia at nationals in Washington. The winning speller from each state advancese to Washington as the lone representative from his or her state.

The District 3 spelling bee went on for a total of 22 rounds before Ramey finally tripped on the word "Pasqueflower. Gwinnett County's spelling bee champion, Shruthi Santhanam, correctly spelled this word plus one additional word to be crowned district 3 champion and, like Ramey, moves on to state competition.

Matthew Antoci, runner-up from Hall County, finished third Saturday as second runner-up at district and he will be the alternate should either of the top two spellers fail to be able to represent District 3 on March 19.

Before begin eliminated in the final round Parker correctly spelled:

1. Chronic
2. Pragmatic
3. Mongrel allotted
4. Prosaic
5. Incredulous
6. Beleaguer
7. Flamboyant
8. hedonism
9. Kuruma
10. adagio
11. hollandaise
12. gauche
13. bromeliad
14. anachronism
15. melange
16. vaquero
17. draconian
18. arthroscopy
19. perpend
20. triphibian
21. thermophilic
22. Incorrectly spelled - Pasqueflower