Station Middle School Pupil Competes In National Spelling Bee Pranav Sivakumar is one of 41 students competing in the semifinal round of the National Spelling Bee.

By Morgan Delack | Email the author | June 2, 2011


Eleven-year-old Pranav Sivakumar, of Tower Lakes, is one of 41 spellers to compete in the semifinal round of the National Spelling Bee on June 2.

Sivakumar is a sixth-grader at Barrington Middle School-Prairie Campus. According to the National Spelling Bee website, Sivakumar is active in music at the school, playing the piano and viola, and is a member of the jazz band and youth orchestras. Spelling isn't the only thing Sivakumar excels in academically. In 2010, he memorized more than 800 digits of pi for National Pi Day.

In round one of the spelling bee, Sivakumar correctly spelled 25 words including pinealectomy and Kafkaesque. He made it past the first semifinal round by spelling excrescential without error, but was eliminated after misspelling the word capilliculture. Sivakumar missed one letter, spelling capiliculture.

The finals of the National Spelling Bee will air live on ESPN at 7:30 p.m. June 2. The winner will go home with several prizes, including a $30,000 cash prize from Scripps, and a $5,000 scholarship from Sigma Phi Epsilon Educational Foundation