Indian American wins prestigious US spelling bee
May 31st, 2008 - 11:39 am ICT by adminBy Arun Kumar
Washington, May 31 (IANS) Sameer Mishra, 13, an eighth grader Indian American from Indiana, has won back the Scripps National Spelling Bee trophy in the United States by spelling right “guerdon”, a word that appropriately means reward. After a ding-dong battle Friday night that went into the 16th round Sameer Mishra outsmarted Sidharth Chand, 12, another Indian American from Michigan, who tripped on “prosopopoeia” or a personification of inanimate things.
Indian kids have dominated the event in recent years, winning the championship five times in the last nine years. The last Indian winner was Anurag Kashyap in 2005 correctly spelling ‘appoggiatura’.
For his labours Sameer gets a $30,000 cash prize and an engraved loving cup trophy from Scripps, a $2,500 US Savings Bond and a complete reference library From Merriam-Webster, a $5000 cash prize From Sigma Phi Epsilon Educational Foundation and reference works valued at more than $3,800 from Encyclop
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