Indian-American girl wins US Spelling Bee Championship

Lalit K Jha

Washington, May 29 (PTI) Indian-American teenager Kavya
Shivshankar has won the prestigious Scripps Spelling Bee
contest, keeping alive the traditional dominance of the
community which has produced six of the past 10 champions.

The 13-year-old Kansas girl was declared the Spelling Bee
champion after she correctly spelled "laodicean", which means
lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics, at the end of
the grilling finals which included 11 students from all across
the country, seven of whom happened to be Indian-Americans.

An eighth grader student from Olathe in Kansas, Kavya
beamed as he was hugged by his father Mirle, mother Sandy and
little sister Vanya. "I can't believe it happened. It feels
kind of unreal," the cool and composed girl who names Nupur
Lala, the 1999 champion, as her role model, said.

Kavya, took home more than USD 40,000 in cash and prizes
besides the huge champion's trophy, looks forward to becoming
a neurosurgeon. She participated in the 2006, 2007, and 2008
finals, tying for 10th, 8th and 4th place, respectively.

Tim Ruiter, 12, a seventh grade student from Centreville,
Virginia was declared the runner-up, while Aishwarya Pastapur,
13, from Springfield in Illinois got the third spot.

A voracious reader and dedicated student, Aishwarya was
instrumental in leading her Mathcounts team to state-level
competition by winning first place in county-level competition
two years in a row.

This is the second time in a row that an Indian-American
has been declared winner of the Spelling Bee championship, a
competition that has been traditionally dominated by students
from the community.

Eight Indian-Americans have now won the title, including
six of the past 10 winners.

Last year, Sameer Mishra from Lafayette, Indiana, got the
top slot after he correctly spelled 'guerdon'. Rageshree
Ramachandran from Sacramento, California was the first Indian
American to win the championship in 1988. Nupur Lala from
Tampa, Florida won it in 1999.

Among other Indian-Americans to have won the championship
include Pratyush Buddiga from Denver, Colorado in 2002, Sai R
Gunturi from Dallas, Texas in 2003 and Anurag Kashyap from San
Diego, California in 2005.

In all 293 spellers participated in the nationals of the
Spelling Bee Championship held in Washington for the past
three days, which culminated with the finals last night. It
was watched live by millions of people across the United
States.

The spellers range in age from nine to 15 years old, but
two-thirds were either 13 or 14 years old. Interestingly,
English was not the first language of 33 spellers, and 117
spellers speak languages other than English. PTI LKJ
RKM
NNNN

The information contained in this electronic message and any attachments to this
message are intended for the exclusive
use of the addressee(s) and may contain proprietary, confidential or privileged
information. If you are not the intended
recipient, you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please
notify the sender immediately and destroy
all copies of this message and any attachments contained in it.