Day 5 - Spelling champ begins whirlwind of TV appearances
Thursday, June 3, 1999
By Eric Enders
National Spelling Bee Staff
For 14-year-old Nupur Lala, the best thing about being National Spelling Bee champion isn't the $10,000 cash prize. It's the chance to become a TV star.
"I have to admit that the best thing about winning is getting to be on all those TV shows like Rosie O'Donnell and Good Morning America," Nupur said. "But the money's nice too."
Nupur, of Tampa, Fla., spelled "logorrhea" - a word for excessive talkativeness -- to win the 72nd Annual Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee Thursday. In addition to the cash prize, she wins a $1,000 savings bond, a set of encyclopedias, and two airline tickets to any U.S. destination.
"It feels really, really, really great," she said. "This is incredible."
Nupur spelled 12 words correctly, including "balbriggan," "poimenics," and "nociceptor," to defeat 248 other spellers for the championship. Runner-up David Lewandowski, 14, of Munster, Ind., was eliminated after misspelling "opsimath," a word for a person who begins learning late in life.
Nupur said she prepared for the Bee by studying with her parents two hours a day for several months. "Whenever I'd miss a word I'd mark it and go over them until all the words were basically drummed into my head," she said.
This was Nupur's second time at the National Spelling Bee. In 1998 she misspelled "commination." "Last year I got out in the third round, so I wanted to avoid that jinx again," she said. "I just wanted to get onto ESPN. That was my goal this year."
The cable network televised the Bee live beginning with Round Five, when fewer than 50 spellers remained. Nupur said the camera didn't bother her because "I told myself to forget about the cameras and just spell like I normally would."
Nupur had a large cheering section in the audience composed of spellers she met at the Bee. "She kept asking a bunch of questions before spelling her words, just to make us nervous," said one of Nupur's new friends, 13-year-old Heidi Greimann of Columbia, Mo. "We were so tense just watching her each time she came up to the microphone."
After the bee, the group crowded around Nupur on the stage and offered their congratulations. "We got to know each other really well during the week," Nupur said. "During the round breaks we'd all hug each other for comfort."
The cheering group was led by 13-year-old Yan Zhong of Vero Beach, Fla., who befriended Nupur at last year's competition. The two kept in touch on the Internet over the past year and played a violin duet together at the Bee's talent show on Sunday.
"I was so excited for her," Yan said. "She's my best friend at the Bee. I was so nervous when she was up there spelling, I just wanted her to win. When she did, I screamed at the top of my lungs."
"She's flying to New York for the Rosie O'Donnell show, and I wish we could all go with her. I'm going to tell her to get me Rosie's autograph."
After doing interviews with the MSNBC network and Good Morning America, Nupur will leave Sunday for her appearance on Monday's O'Donnell show. "I love Rosie O'Donnell," she said. "She has all those great happy meal toys and she's so funny. I watch her show every day after I get home from school."
Nupur said she isn't nervous about her upcoming talk show debut. "I figure if I could go up on ESPN and spell all those words correctly, then going on TV and talking about the experience shouldn't be so bad," she said.
Nupur, an accomplished musician, said she plans to buy a new violin with her winnings. "I plan to save most of it for college, but I'll probably end up spending some of it on other stuff," she said.
Nupur plans to study at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and become either a neurologist or pediatrician. She said she expects winning the Bee to enhance her educational opportunities.
"I think the words I learned will help me on my SATs and on college entrance essays," she said. "And it might help me get into the college I want, because winning the National Spelling Bee is a pretty unique thing."
