White County girl takes third at state spelling bee

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LITTLE ROCK — Arielle Butler, a seventh-grader at Ahlf Junior High in Searcy, was the second runner-up at the Arkansas State Spelling Bee, which was held Saturday in Little Rock and featured 62 students from across the state.

Arielle was eliminated in the ninth round of the bee and finished third behind Justin Murdock of Conway and Samia Nawaz of Little Rock. Samia won the competition for the second year in a row.

Arielle misspelled "aborigine" in the ninth round of the bee in a spell-off with Justin and Samia. She missed on "perfidy" in a final spell-off between she and Justin to determine second and third places.

Also competing from the Three Rivers area were Anthony Guiltner, an eighth-grader from Mt. Pleasant representing Izard County; Karam Sra, a seventh-grader from Highland representing Sharp County; Joey Burnett, a sixth-grader from Mountain View representing Stone County; Crystal Briner, a seventh-grader from Greers Ferry representing Cleburne County; Deanna Block, an eighth-grader from Tuckerman representing Jackson County; Zac Branscum, an eighth-grader from Southside representing Independence County; and Stephanie Ward, an eighth-grader from Cabot representing Lonoke County.

Three Rivers, Pages 56 on 03/27/2008