BENTONVILLE (KFSM) -- A sixth grade Bentonville girl will soon be traveling to the nation's capital to compete among the best young spellers at the National Spelling Bee.
Pavani Chittemsetty recently won first place at the state competition in Conway. She described those last few minutes as nerve-wracking.
“I was getting stressed a little because I was like, "oh there are only two people left". If I spell one word correct, it wins. If not, we just keep going on-and-on-and-on, but I tried to slow down but it was sort of hard to," Chittemsetty said.
Even with the nerves, she still won spelling the word 'laterigrade'.
When she realized what happened, she said all she could think about were the other students. She said she knows they worked just as hard, if not harder, than her to get to that position.
She spends two to three hours every day going through various words and getting completing homework.
This is the second time Chittemsetty has won the the state spelling bee and has won the county spelling bee four consecutive years.
She is now getting ready to go to Washington D.C. at the end of May, something she says has been a dream of hers since she first saw the competition on television in first grade.
“When I saw the words, I was fascinated by the words," Chittemsetty said. "I thought wow and I saw the National Spelling Bee in first and second grade and I was like wow imagine if I was on that stage and I spelled those words correctly in front of millions of viewers.”
Chittemsetty said she is ready for what the next step has in store for her. This success does not come without a price. One of the most difficult things for Chittemsetty is spending a lot of time studying and missing out on spending time with friends.
She hopes all this work will help her with tests like the ACT and the SATs.