Education

Onalaska student wins regional spelling bee, held on-line for another year

Published

3 years ago

February 10, 2022

For the second consecutive year, a regional spelling bee for the La Crosse area was conducted online instead of in-person.

And for the second consecutive year, a speller from Onalaska Middle School outlasted other contestants from the area to win the CESA-4 bee.

This year’s local winner was Gowri Prakash, who will be one of five finishers in the CESA-4 bee to move on to the state finals.

Prakash correctly spelled “fontina” to win the regional bee. Fontina is an Italian cheese.

The other four local finalists headed to the state bee are:

Maria Gonzalez of Melrose-Mindoro
Maisie McKinney of Coulee Christian School
Harmanpreet Virk of Holmen Middle School
Lewis Go of Aquinas Middle School

The top finishers at the state bee will compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington this summer.

Twenty-four spellers took part in Thursday’s regional bee from classrooms and other sites, while bee officials were based at the CESA office in West Salem.

Snigdha Rajamanuri of Onalaska Middle was the regional bee champion in 2021.

The 2020 regional bee was the last one held in person at the CESA headquarters before the start of the pandemic. Plans are for the state finals on March 26th to be conducted in-person, tentatively at Madison College.

Brad Williams

A native of Prairie du Chien, Brad graduated from UW - La Crosse and has worked in radio news for more than 30 years, mostly in the La Crosse area. He regularly covers local courts and city and county government. Brad produces the features "Yesterday in La Crosse" and "What's Buried on Brad's Desk." He also writes the website "Triviazoids," which finds odd connections between events that happen on a certain date, and he writes and performs with the local comedy group Heart of La Crosse. Brad been featured on several national TV programs because of his memory skills.