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Sunday, March 17, 2002

By Deborah Mendenhall, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Priya Singh, a seventh-grader from the North Side, bested 92 of her peers and walked away with top honors -- and a big trophy -- at the 52nd Annual Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Spelling Bee yesterday.

Priya Singh, left, of Cardinal Wright Regional School looks on as Jennifer Rizzi of Independence Middle School competes at the 52nd Annual Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Spelling Bee yesterday. (Gabor Degre, Post-Gazette)

After all other competitors toppled, 11-year-old Priya was given the word "kabuki," a traditional Japanese drama performed with highly stylized singing and dancing. Breaking into a triumphant smile, Priya confidently spelled the word correctly and was rewarded with a round of applause.

The first prize is an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C., where Priya will represent Western Pennsylvania at the National Spelling Bee in May.

Priya began the day at 9 a.m. with students from other schools across the region in the palatial Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, which was filled with supportive family, friends and teachers.

When the final rounds began at 2 p.m., only 30 students remained. Rick Sebak, a WQED producer, pronounced the words for students and kept things moving with humor. At one point, he admitted that he couldn't spell Coraopolis, and then complimented George Senita, a Pine-Richland Middle School student, for successfully spelling "bolide," an exploding meteor.

"I didn't know that one," he said.

By Round 5, some of the best spellers had stumbled on words such as "nonagesimal," which means having the number 90 in a countable series; "klister," soft wax used on skis for crusty snow; "pettifogger," an underhanded lawyer; and "carrion," the dead and putrefying flesh of an animal.

And then there were three.

In the sixth round, Nathan Thompson, a sixth-grader at Holiday Park Elementary School in Plum, had to sit down after giving "Armageddon" two "g's" and one "d."

That left Priya and Jennifer Rizzi, 13, a seventh-grader at Independence Middle School in Bethel Park.

Priya successfully spelled "stygian," meaning characteristic of death, while Jennifer spelled "homburg," a man's hat.

Priya then correctly spelled the flower "rhododendron."

Sebak had earlier warned the audience to be quiet, but a collective gasp resounded when Jennifer was given the word "loxocosm."

The word, which is a device that shows how the inclination of the earth's axis causes the day's length to vary from season to season, isn't even found in Webster's Collegiate Dictionary or Dictionary Online.

After asking the word's origin, its meaning and for its use in a sentence, Jennifer used the wrong vowels and misspelled the word.

"I knew how to spell kabuki!" Jennifer teased Priya afterward.

Priya said she didn't know "loxocosm," but thought she could have figured it out.

Nathan said he actually knew how to spell "Armageddon," but got mixed up on which letter should be doubled.

"But that didn't matter much because I didn't know how to spell the words that came afterward," he said.

Nathan's teacher, Jennifer Clinton, confirmed that he knew "Armageddon." She said Nathan had studied with her 45 minutes before classes every day for three weeks.

"He did great and he'll be back next year," she said.

All three finalists professed to be bookworms who began reading alone when they were about 4 years old.

Priya, who attends the Cardinal Wright Regional School, said she has always been a good speller, but that she had nearly forgotten to study for the spelling bee because she had spent so much time on a science fair project. She said she began reviewing words only last Friday.

Other words she spelled correctly during the finals were: wizard, dubiously, procrastinating, yachtsman, waggery (mischievous merriment) and atrament (the dark fluid emitted by the octopus).

For her efforts, Priya also received Webster's Third New International Dictionary and a $100 Savings Bond. Other students received a Barnes & Noble gift certificate, dictionaries and Pittsburgh Pirates baseball tickets.

Standing on the stage holding the glittering trophy and hefty dictionary, Priya said she couldn't quite believe her success.

"I feel like this big dictionary is going to fall on my foot and I'm going to wake up and find out that I've been dreaming," she said.