A Sebastian County student is the winner of the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas sponsored 2026 Arkansas State Spelling Bee with students from Baxter and Marion County placing 3rd and 5th.
The 11-year-old Karthik Dalai of East Hills Middle School is the son of Venkata Dalai and Phani Kampella of Fort Smith.
Dalai, who placed fourth in last year’s bee, won among a field of 56 students from across Arkansas that had won their respective county spelling bees. The state event was held at the Arkansas 4-H Vines Center in Little Rock.
The runner-up for the state contest was Viktoria Caril of Pulaski County. Placing third was Daksh Singh of White County and Michael Jones of Baxter County, while fourth place went to Arav Ashish of Benton County and Kaylee Tran of Craighead County. Carter Metcalf of Marion County, Warren Reynolds of Union County and Joshua Oh of Lonoke County placed fifth.
More than 85,000 students from 430 schools in 58 counties across Arkansas participated in local and county contests leading up to the State Spelling Bee contest. Dalai will represent Arkansas at The Scripps National Spelling Bee, the nation’s largest and longest-running educational program, in Washington D.C. in May.
This year’s State Spelling Bee will also be broadcast on Arkansas TV, formerly known as Arkansas PBS, and air on April 2 at 7 p.m.
The purpose of the Scripps National Spelling Bee is to help students improve their spelling, increase their vocabularies, learn concepts and develop correct English usage that will help them throughout their lives.
The Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas comprise electric distribution cooperatives; Arkansas Electric Cooperatives, Inc. (AECI), a Little Rock-based cooperative that provides services to the distribution cooperatives; and Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. (AECC), a generation and transmission cooperative. The distribution cooperatives provide electricity to more than 1 million members, or customers, in Arkansas and surrounding states.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI