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13-year-old from Poway, Calif. wins Scripps National Spelling Bee

June 2, 2005
 

WASHINGTON – Anurag Kashyap, a 13-year-old speller from Poway, Calif., won the 78th Annual Scripps National Spelling Bee today. Anurag was named the National Spelling Bee Champion in the 19th round after correctly spelling the word “appoggiatura,” which is defined as “an accessory embellishing note or tone preceding an essential melodic note or tone.” Anurag, the son of Chandra D. Roy and Archana Kashyap, represented The San Diego Union-Tribune in this year’s competition. Anurag is an eighth-grade student at Meadowbrook Middle School in Poway.This was the second National Spelling Bee in which Anurag competed. He tied for 47th place in the 2004 national finals.The spelling competition began Wednesday with 273 competitors who qualified to compete in the national spelling bee by winning locally sponsored bees in their home communities. Richard A. Boehne, executive vice president of The E. W. Scripps Company, declared Anurag the national champion and awarded him the engraved National Spelling Bee Championship loving cup immediately after the winning word was correctly spelled. “Each year we host the Scripps National Spelling Bee to celebrate academic excellence and to encourage advanced literacy,” Boehne said. “Our congratulations to Anurag, who survived 19 rounds of spelling to emerge as the 2005 national champion. We also extend our congratulations to all of the top spellers who participated in this year’s competition.”The Scripps National Spelling Bee is the nation’s largest and longest running educational promotion. The competition is administered on a not-for-profit basis by The E. W. Scripps Company, based in Cincinnati, and 264 local sponsors. The majority of local spelling bee sponsors are daily and weekly newspapers.The competition was held in the Independence Ballroom at the Grand Hyatt Washington. Round-by-round results can be reviewed at the Scripps National Spelling Bee Web site, spellingbee.com.As the national champion, Anurag receives $12,000 in cash from Scripps; an engraved loving cup; a $5,000 cash award from Franklin Electronic Publishers; a $5,000 cash award from LeapFrog Enterprises Inc.; a $5,000 scholarship from Sigma Phi Epsilon Education Foundation; and, from Encyclopedia Britannica, one set of the Encyclopedia Britannica and other reference works. The national champion also receives a $1,000 U.S. savings bond and library of reference works.All 273 competing spellers receive cash prizes that range from $50 to $12,000 for the national champion. All spellers receive a commemorative watch, the Samuel Louis Sugarman Award, which consists of a $100 EE U.S. Savings bond, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, on CD-ROM from Merriam-Webster and a $20 gift certificate from Franklin Electronic Publishers. Franklin will award the top 10 to 12 finishers a limited edition electronic dictionary and thesaurus. Tying for second in this year’s competition were Samir Patel, 11, of Colleyville, Texas, and Aliya Deri, 13, of Pleasanton, Calif. Samir is the son of Jyoti and Sudhir Patel and represented the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Aliya is the daughter of Robert and Parveen Deri and represented the San Francisco Chronicle. Samir and Aliya each receive a cash prize of $4,750. The fourth-place finisher was Rajiv Tarigopula, 12, of St. Louis, representing the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Rajiv, the son of Dr. Sumitra Vasireddy and Dr. Choudary Tarigopula, receives a $2,000 cash prize.About ScrippsScripps is a diverse media concern with interests in national lifestyle television networks, newspaper publishing, broadcast television, television retailing, interactive media and licensing and syndication. All of the company’s media businesses provide content and advertising services via the Internet.Scripps is organized into the following operating divisions. Scripps Networks, including the company’s growing portfolio of popular lifestyle television networks. Scripps Networks brands include Home & Garden Television, Food Network, DIY Network, Fine Living, Great American Country (GAC) and HGTVPro. Scripps Networks Web sites include FoodNetwork.com, HGTV.com, DIYnetwork.com, fineliving.com and gactv.com. Scripps Networks programming can be seen in 86 countries.Scripps Newspapers, including daily and community newspapers in 19 markets and the Washington-based Scripps Media Center, home to the Scripps Howard News Service. Scripps newspapers include the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, the Knoxville (Tenn.) News Sentinel and the Ventura County (Calif.) Star. Scripps Television Station Group, including six ABC-affiliated stations, three NBC affiliates and one independent. Scripps operates broadcast television stations in Detroit; Cleveland; Cincinnati; Phoenix; Tampa; Baltimore; Kansas City, Mo.; West Palm Beach, Fla.; Tulsa, Okla.; and Lawrence, Kan.Shop at Home, the company’s television retailing subsidiary, which markets a growing range of consumer goods directly to television viewers and visitors to the Shop at Home Web site, shopathometv.com. Shop at Home reaches about 53 million full-time equivalent U.S. households, including 5 million households via five Scripps-owned Shop at Home affiliated television stations.United Media, a leading licensing and syndication company. United Media is the worldwide licensing and syndication home of Peanuts, Dilbert and about 150 other features and characters.