Fort Couch Middle School student wins Western Pennsylvania Spelling Bee
For the second consecutive year, an Upper St. Clair student has been crowned champion of the Western Pennsylvania Spelling Bee.
Rohan Mehta, a Fort Couch Middle School eighth grader, took top honors March 13, qualifying to advance in the competition.
There are three levels of competition: preliminary, quarterfinal and semifinal segments. In past years, those three rounds were held over one week, Bee Week. This year, the preliminaries, quarterfinals and semifinals will be held virtually in the weeks leading up to the July 8 finals and will be broadcast live on ESPN platforms. The semifinals are schedule for June 27, and dates for the earlier virtual rounds of the competition will be announced this spring.
Rohan was one of five Upper St. Clair students who competed in the Western Pennsylvania Spelling Bee, joining Finley Garvey, Baker Elementary School; Divya Singh, Eisenhower Elementary School; Lindsey Fitzgerald, Streams Elementary School; and Raana Parchuri, Boyce Middle School.
To qualify for the regional competition, each finished first in his or her school’s spelling bee. The school-level spelling bees were coordinated by the Upper St. Clair Parent Teacher Council with sponsorship from MIDSYS Inc.
Boyce Middle School fifth-grader Raana Parchuri was runner-up of the Western Pennsylvania Spelling Bee. Last year, Raana, then a fourth-grader at Baker Elementary, was crowned champion at the 70th Annual Western Pennsylvania Spelling Bee, which was held in March 2020 at Robert Morris University.