14-year-old Ohio Girl Wins Scripps National Spelling Bee

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Jun 04, 2010, 10:48 ET

WASHINGTON, June 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Anamika Veeramani, a 14-year-old speller from North Royalton, Ohio, won the 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee Friday night.

Anamika was named the Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion in the ninth round after correctly spelling the word "stromuhr," which is defined as "an instrument for measuring the flow of viscous substances designed to measure the amount and speed of blood flow through an artery."

Anamika represented The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, in this year's competition. She is an eighth grade student at Incarnate Word Academy in Parma Heights, Ohio.

This was the second consecutive Scripps National Spelling Bee in which Anamika competed. She tied for fifth place in last year's Bee.

The championship rounds of this year's Bee were broadcast live on the ABC Television Network.

The spelling competition began Wednesday with 273 competitors who qualified to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee by winning locally sponsored bees in their home communities.

Rich Boehne, president and chief executive officer of The E. W. Scripps Company (NYSE: SSP), declared Anamika the national champion and awarded her the engraved Scripps National Spelling Bee Championship loving cup immediately after the winning word was correctly spelled.

"Congratulations to Anamika, who triumphed over some of the most challenging words in the English language to emerge as the 2010 national champion," Boehne said. "It's an honor to sponsor the Scripps National Spelling Bee and to be associated with these future leaders. We congratulate the 273 champions who mesmerized fans worldwide this week with their impressive command of spelling and language."

With 11 million spellers starting at the local level, the Scripps National Spelling Bee is the nation's largest and longest-running educational program. The competition is administered on a not-for-profit basis by The E.W. Scripps Company, based in Cincinnati, and 268 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, www.spellingbee.com.

Tied for second in this year's competition were: Shantanu Srivatsa of West Fargo, N.D. (representing the North Dakota Council of Educational Leaders), Elizabeth Platz of Shelbina, Mo. (representing the Columbia Daily Tribune), and Adrian Gunawan of Arlington Heights, Ill. (representing Commonwealth Edison).

Cash prizes for competitors range from $50 to $30,000 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; and Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, on CD-ROM from Merriam-Webster.

The national champion also receives an engraved loving cup; from Sigma Phi Epsilon Educational Foundation, a $5,000 scholarship; from Merriam-Webster, a $2,500 U.S. Savings Bond and a reference library; and from Encyclopedia Britannica, $2,700 in reference words and the Britannica Test Prep Precocious Package valued at $799.

About the Scripps National Spelling Bee

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is the nation's largest and longest-running educational promotion, administered on a not-for-profit basis by The E.W. Scripps Company and 268 local spelling bee sponsors. The purpose of the Scripps National Spelling Bee is to help students improve spelling, increase their vocabularies, learn concepts and develop correct English usage that will help them all of their lives.

About Scripps

The E.W. Scripps Company is a diverse, 131-year-old media enterprise with interests in television stations, newspapers, local news and information Web sites, and licensing and syndication. The company's portfolio of locally focused media properties includes: 10 TV stations (six ABC affiliates, three NBC affiliates and one independent); daily and community newspapers in 13 markets and the Washington, D.C.-based Scripps Media Center, home of the Scripps Howard News Service; and United Media, the syndicator of approximately 150 features and comics. For a full listing of Scripps media companies and their associated websites, visit http://www.scripps.com/.

SOURCE The E.W. Scripps Company