CARMEL — The 2010 Hamilton County Spelling Bee has found a new sponsor.

Williams Comfort Air, a heating and cooling provider in Carmel, has come forward.

Suzi Nichols, Noblesville, marketing manager for Williams Comfort Air, said Monday she would coordinate the event under her employer’s sponsorship. The Indianapolis Star formerly sponsored the spelling bee in Hamilton County.

Nichols said the company’s president Joe Huck signed a contract Friday with Scripps National Spelling Bee to coordinate and operate the local bee, pay the $900 sponsorship fee, and send the champion and a chaperone to Washington, D.C., for the 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

When the deadline for schools to enter the 83rd annual National Spelling Bee came and went Oct. 16 without a sponsor, a call-out went to the community.

Last year’s winner and his family had joined the search to find a new sponsor.

“I’ve very glad we have a sponsor,” said Lakshmi Vavilala, whose son, Vaibhav Vavilala, 14, a Carmel High School freshman, went to his fourth and final Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., earlier this year.