National Spelling Bee 2009 Winner

National Spelling Bee 2009 Winner Results

Kavya Shivashankar is National Spelling Bee 2009 Winner. Talk about Indians’ achievements in America, Scripps Spelling Bee should certainly feature as one. Second time in a row, an Indian won the prestigious Scripps Spelling Bee Championship.

The trophy was won by an eighth grade student from Kansas. The girl, Kavya Shivshankar clinched the championship after a tough contest with 11 finalists, dominated by Indian-American community; around 7 of them are Indian Americans.

Kavya became the Spelling Bee champion as soon as she spelled the word “laodicean.”

The eighth grader is looking forward to going into medical career and she aspires to become a neurosurgeon. Kavya is an experienced speller and she featured three times in 2006, 2007, and 2008 finals, where she stood the 10th, 8th, and 4th places, respectively before she became champion this year.

12-year-old seventh grader Tim Ruiter of Virgina stood 2nd and another Indian American, 13-year-old Aishwarya Pastapur, of Illinois came third. The spellers age range was between 9 and 15, however, majority of them were in 13-14 age group.

In 2008, it was Indiana resident Sameer Mishra who won the Scripps Spelling Bee Championship.

But it was in 1988 that an Indian American first won the championship. It was Rageshree Ramachandran from Sacramento, California.

About 293 students contested in the nationals of the Scripps Spelling Bee Championship. Washington held the event for last 3 days. The event had millions of TV viewers too and it is quite popular with the people of United States.

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