A 13 year-old eighth grader, Sameer Mishra of Indian origins has become the winner of the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee contest. He attained this feat by defeating 288 other children aged between eight and 15 years who had participated in this contest.  ‘Guerdon' said the judges and Sameer spelt it out correctly with confidence and the audience attending the contest broke out into ear deafening applause.  

 

It was a special moment for Sameer Mishra who had participated in the same contest three times earlier. Mishra reportedly was trained by his sister Shruti who is a spelling enthusiast herself. Apart from a trophy, the winner of the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee contest also received USD 30,000 in cash and USD 2,500 worth US savings bonds from Merriam-Webster with a complete reference library.

 

Even the second rank in the spelling contest was bagged by a 12 year old Indian American boy, Sidharth Chand of the seventh grade. The final short-listed group of 12 participants in the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee contest had a total of four Indian American students. The other two Indian origin students were Kavya Shivashankar at the fourth place and Janhnavi Iyer at the 8th place. Winner Sameer Mishra is a computer and video games enthusiast and wants to become a neuro-surgeon upon growing up.