Kavya Shivashankar, winner of the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee and the India Abroad Young Achiever Award, was invited to meet President Obama this month.
In her fourth appearance at the annual spelling marathon, a supremely-confident Kavya Shivashankar, 13, of Olathe, Kansas, breezed through to win the 82nd Scripps National Spelling Bee competition.
The Indian American kid was declared the Spelling Bee champion after she correctly spelled 'laodicean' at the end of the grilling championship finals, which included 11 students from all across the country, seven of whom happened to be Indian-Americans.
35 qualify for Scripps National Spelling Bee
Indian American children maintained their complete dominance in the annual US Scripps National Spelling Bee contest by winning the prestigious competition for the eighth year in a row.
A total of 15 Indian-American students, including six girls, have made it to the national Spelling Bee semifinals, making it almost one-third of the total 42 candidates who have qualified.
Two Indian-Americans -- Sriram J Hathwar and Ansun Sujoe -- have scripted history by becoming co-champions of the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee, the first since 1962.
Indian American children's domination of the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee could be put down to their perseverance, the competition's director has said while slamming the racist backlash against the winners of Indian-origin.
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