“Aporia,” the winning word in the Olathe Spelling Bee on Thursday, means the expression of real or simulated doubt or perplexity.

The word didn’t perplex the winner, Vanya Shivashankar, who successfully spelled her way to a second bee title and earned a spot at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. Vanya, a fifth-grader at Regency Place Elementary School, also won the Olathe bee — and a trip to the nationals — in 2010 when she was just 8.

This year, Vanya won in the 12th round, beating 44 top spellers from 43 Olathe elementary and middle schools and Christ Lutheran School. Each speller qualified by winning their school’s bee.

Srikar Munukutla, 10, a fourth-grader from Pleasant Ridge Elementary School, was the bee’s runner-up. He was eliminated on “cloche.” Vanya correctly spelled that word, which is a small cover for outdoor plants, and then went on to spell “aporia” to gain the district title.

Vanya, who smiled throughout the bee, described the competition as “really fun. I was really pumped up and enthusiastic.”

She is following in the footsteps of her sister, Kavya, now a student at Olathe North High School, who first qualified for the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2006. Three national finals appearances later, Kavya won the 2009 championship.

“I am so proud of her,” Kavya said immediately following Thursday’s competition at Frontier Trail Middle School. “She did a wonderful job.”

Kavya is still involved in spelling activities. She and her father, Mirle, were leaving following the bee to travel to Abu Dhabi, where Kavya was invited to be a special guest at the finals of the First Transworld Spelling Bee.

“I’ve never been to the Middle East, so I’m really excited,” Kavya said.

Kavya and her father coached Vanya in preparation for the event, working with her daily.

“My sister and my Dad quizzed me on different spelling lists,” Vanya said. “I won my school bee on Jan. 20, so I had less than three weeks to prepare.”

She calmly spelled 13 words on her way to victory, including mohair, carnivore, serdab, roodebok, tertiary, innocuous, voortrekker, recalcitrant, philhellenism and whirligig.

In her 2010 win, Vanya won the Olathe Spelling Bee in the 36th round by correctly spelling “arrondissement,” which the runner-up missed, and then “apparatchik.”

In addition to her trip to Washington, Vanya also wins the Samuel Louis Sugarman Award, a copy of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, a subscription to Encyclopaedia Britannica Online and a $20 Amazon.com gift certificate.

The Olathe Spelling Bee, sponsored by The Olathe News, is open to children in public, private and home schools within the Olathe Public Schools district boundaries. Other children in Johnson County compete for a chance to appear at a spelling bee in Great Bend, Kan., that sends its winner to the national bee in Washington.