ATLANTA — A metro Atlanta teen and a 10-year-old were eliminated in the Scripps National Spelling Bee as they competed against hundreds of spellers around the country.
Fourth-grader Sarv Dharavane, 10, finished as a semifinalist. He was eliminated in the sixth round for misspelling the word "stalace" on Wednesday. He tied for 23rd place in this year's competition.
He recently received a send-off from his classmates at Austin Elementary School in Dunwoody. According to the competition's website, he appears to have advanced to the next round.
In March, he won the 63rd annual Georgia Association of Educators state spelling bee.
According to his speller's bio, Sarv likes to play outside, spend time with family and friends and, most importantly, read in his free time.
Before going to the competition, he gave some advice to other students wanting to expand their vocabulary.
"Read your books, all the books. And I'm talking to all the kids who are going to be watching this," Dharavane said. "Read your books! If you don't read books, you're never going to get anywhere."
The bio added that the 10-year-old also plays soccer, swims, and is a green belt in tae kwon do. Dharavane's favorite hobbies are playing piano, speed-solving Rubik's cubes, computer programming and building with legos. He also loves math and English.
Matthew Baber, now 14, competed in the spelling bee last year as a seventh grader and tied for 57th place. He competed again in eighth grade. He was eliminated on Tuesday in the fourth round for misspelling the word "bicitaxi." He finished as a quarterfinalist. He tied for 60th place this year.
He attends Rising Starr Middle School in Peachtree City.
11Alive spoke with him last year, and he expressed interest in wanting to compete again in this year's competition.
Baber previously told 11Alive his strategy to prepare for the spelling bee.
"It's usually not helpful to just memorize words because there are hundreds of thousands of words. And the odds of you picking one word out of the dictionary and having that be the word they give you is extremely astronomical. You might have a better chance of winning the lottery," Baber added.
According to Baber's speller's bio, he was born in Hawaii. Baber also loves language, math, computer science, jiu-jitsu, cello, piano, and music composition.
He recently wrote his own novel, the bio stated.
Baber and Dharavane were sponsored by the Georgia Association of Educators, a nonprofit organization in Tucker that advocates for public school teachers.