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His mom said he never cracked a dictionary in preparation, but that didn’t stop Sachith Gullapalli from winning The Roanoke Times 35th annual Regional Spelling Bee Saturday.

Although words of French origin have dogged him in the past, Gullapalli, 11, a seventh- grader at Hidden Valley Middle School, successfully spelled “silhouette” to take the regional spelling crown for the third consecutive year.

The victory earned him an expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., where he’ll represent Southwest Virginia in the 81st annual Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee that begins May 29.

Emma Boyer, an eighth-grader from Read Mountain Middle School who represented Botetourt County, finished second in the regional bee. The third-place finisher was Mattie Clear, a fifth-grader who attends Chilhowie Elementary School in Smyth County.

About an hour and 15 minutes into the event, Boyer and Gullapalli were the only contestants remaining on the stage.

Boyer stumbled on “appositive,” an adjective that describes a grammatical construction consisting of two nouns or noun equivalents.

Gullapalli won the round by successfully spelling “mortician.” But under the rules he still had to get through one more word to take the championship.

That word was “silhouette,” which he spelled slowly but confidently.

In all, 17 spellers in the fifth through eighth grades competed in the Saturday-morning event at the Holiday Inn Roanoke Airport.

Gullapalli is the son of Dakshin Gullapalli, a neurologist who works at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Salem, and Geeta Gullapalli, an audiologist. The family lives in Southwest Roanoke County.

The skinny seventh-grader also represented Southwest Virginia in the national spelling bee in 2006, when he made it to the nationally televised third round, and again in 2007, when he was defeated in the fifth round.

After the event, Geeta Gullapalli that her son had to choose between competing on a team math event Saturday in Richmond or attending the spelling bee.

The funny thing is, recently he’s seemed much more interested in math than in spelling, she noted.

“You know the dictionary he won last year?” she asked. “I don’t think he’s looked in it once.”
 
Hard to spell
Among the words that proved to be spellers’ undoing in the regional spelling bee were:
petunia
insidious
pyre
percolate
kuchen
rhinoceros
taupe
advantageous
bantamweight
parasol
appositive
 
Order of finishers
1. Sachith Gullapalli, 7th grade, Roanoke County
2. Emma Boyer, 8th grade, Botetourt County
3. Mattie Clear, 5th grade, Smyth County
4. Molly Ann Futrell, 6th grade,, Pulaski County
5. Jackson Tomlin, 6th grade, Bedford County
6. Nora Ferguson, 6th grade, Franklin County
7. Joseph Byer, 8th grade, Covington
8. Cathy Ren, 8th grade, Roanoke
9. Jason Feng, 8th grade, Radford
10. Emily Arrington, 5th grade, Alleghany County
11. Matthew Deters, 8th grade, Wythe County
12. Andrew Walker, 7th grade Craig County
13. Jeremy Stelmack, 7th grade, Independent division
14. Erik Reinartsen, 5th grade, Montgomery County
15. Benjamin Morrison, 8th grade, Giles County
16. Timothy Moran, 5th grade, Salem
17. Meghan Brown, 6th grade, Bath County.