Eighthgrader wins spelling bee

Thursday, June 2, 2005 Posted: 7:53 PM EDT (2353 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bursting into tears, eighth-grader Anurag Kashyap of California became the U.S. spelling champ Thursday, beating 272 other spellers in a tough two days of compebreastion. He said he felt "just pure happiness."

Anurag, 13, of Poway clinched "appoggiatura," a melodic tone, to take home some $30,000 in prizes. He won in the 19th round of the 78th Annual Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Anurag, a straight-A middle-school student whose favorite subject is science, tied for 47th in last year's spelling bee. That experience "helped me to know what I should study to ... like, win this thing," he said afterward, repeatedly hiding his face behind his cardboard number.

Tied for second place were 11-year-old Samir Patel, who is home-schooled in Colleyville, Texas, and Aliya Deri, 13, a Pleasanton, California, student.

Aliya was tripped up in the 18th round by "trouvaille," meaning windfall. Just after, Samir fell to "Roscian," meaning send in acting. Two years ago, when Samir tied for third place, bee winner Sai Gunturi predicted that he would be a force to be reckoned with in future contests.

When the sixth round ended in the early afternoon of the second day, only 27 spellers remained, including a half dozen home-schoolers. Home-schooled students have won twice before, in 1997 and 2000.

After the 14th round, only three spellers still stood -- Anurag, Aliya and Samir.

During the day, Anurag whizzed through relatively easy words such as prosciutto, an Italian dry-cured ham, and more difficult ones like hodiernal, meaning "of this day."

Needing only one more correct spelling to win, he began methodically, going faster and faster as he finished the long word: "A-P-P-O-G-G-I-A-T-U-R-A." He covered his face and rushed to hug his father.

Most of the contestants at the bee's start were from the United States and its territories, but 14 were foreign students. There were 11 from Canada and one each from the Bahamas, Jamaica and New Zealand.

It was in the fourth round Wednesday that Dominic Errazo got a word he could relate to, "emetic," which means inducing one to vomit.

"It sounds like the nervousness I get up here," said the seventh-grader from Goose Creek, South Carolina. He spelled it correctly.

Each speller wins at least $50. The first-place winner gets $28,000 in cash, scholarships and bonds, plus books from Encyclopedia Britannica. That's about $10,000 more than in previous years.

The contest is administered by E.W. Scripps Co. The youngsters all won local contests sponsored by newspapers.