TEMPE – So-Young Chung, a seventh-grader at Terramar Elementary School in Peoria, won the Arizona Spelling Bee on Saturday at Arizona State University for the second consecutive year.
Chung beat 26 other students and won in the 15th round by correctly spelling “solecism,” which means an ungrammatical combination of words in a sentence.
She will compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee on May 26-29 in Washington, D.C.
Chung also won $500, a trip for two to Washington from US Airways and other prizes.
The 27 finalists represented schools from across Arizona and were chosen during several rounds of competitions at the school, district and regional level.
Raymie Humbert, an eighth-grader at Kyrene del Pueblo Middle School in Chandler, finished second.
In third place was Jim Denker, an eighth-grader at Christian Home Educators of Tucson.
Hannah Fechter, a seventh-grader at Phoenix’s Alhambra Traditional School, finished fourth and David Joe, an eighth-grader at Kingman’s White Cliffs Middle School, came in fifth.