Cary Boy Earns Trip To Scripps National Bee

MCHENRY COUNTY, IL — Residents watching this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee will want to keep an eye out for one local speller.

Vishrut Kinikar, a 13-year-old from Cary, has qualified for the national bee. It will be his first time taking the stage at the national competition, and he will square off against 230 other top spellers from across the U.S. later this month.

The Cary Junior High School seventh grader has been competing in, and winning, school bees since third grade and won the McHenry County spelling bee for the first time this year, the Northwest Herald is reporting.

Preliminaries for the bee will run from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on May 30 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. The finals and semifinals, which will take place on May 31 and June 1, will air live on the ION channel.

• Information on how to watch the spelling bee can be found here.

Besides being a spelling pro, Vishrut has several other hobbies, including reading, blogging, playing chess and playing guitar, according to his profile on the National Spelling Bee website. He also has a passion for math, physics and history and loves to talk about different cultures.

The 13-year-old Cary boy enjoy being out in nature and riding his bike and has a goal of learning Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language, over the next two years.

Vishrut was recently recognized for his accomplishment of winning the McHenry County spelling bee and earning a spot a the national bee at a Cary Community School District 26 meeting.