Kansas gal Kavya Shivshankar bee-comes spelling princess

WASHINGTON: There was an air of inevitability as yet another precocious 
middle-Indian-American Kavya Shivashankar lifts the trophy after winning the 
2009 National Spelling Bee, in Washington. (Reuters Photo)
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schooler of Indian origin won the US National Spelling Bee Indian-American 
Kavya Shivashankar lifts the trophy after winning the 2009 National Spelling 
Bee, in Washington. (Reuters Photo)
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championship for 2009 on 
Thursday night, extending a decade long run in which Indian-Americans kids have 
won the title seven times out of ten. 

Kavya Shivshankar of Olethe, Kansas, effortlessly spelt the word Laodicean -- 
which means indifferent or lukewarm especially in matters of religion -- to 
claim the title after her only remaining American opponent Tim Ruiter flubbed 
Maecenas, which means a generous benefactor. 

Indians aren’t Laodicean in the usual sense. In fact, when it comes to spelling 
bee championship especially, they have made it a rite -- or write -- of 
passage. To the point of being devout.
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http://tinyurl.com/nsblp8

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Indian-origin-girl-wins-US-Spelling-Bee-contest/articleshow/4591730.cms

This was LAST YEAR
8-yr-old Indian-American spells history
30 May 2008, 0859 hrs IST, IANS
WASHINGTON: Sriram Hathwar, an 8-year-old Indian American boy, has become the 

http://tinyurl.com/l7v2tq

youngest speller in the history of the Scripps National 
Spelling Bee even as he could 
not go too far in the popular contest. 

But nine other of the 30 Indian-American participants made it to the semi 
finals of the 83-year-old competition Thursday by spelling words like 
"leptocercal", "bizarrerie" and "trochophore" 

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". 



Shrikant Vinayak Barve



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