Kavya Shivashankar, an 8-year-old from Olathe, KS, and Aamani Paturi, a 10-year-old from Barrington, IL, won the 12th Annual North South Foundation Junior and Senior National Spelling Bee Championships, respectively, at the national finals held at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, on Sept. 4-5.

Anand Oza from North Potomac, MD, won the Junior Vocabulary contest while Keshav Pillai, who just moved from Ohio to Virginia, took the senior crown, according to a press release issued by North South Foundation.

In the inaugural finals of the foundation’s newest contest –– Math Bee –– two contestants from California, Divya Sidharth from Encino and Ganesh Ajjanagadde from Union City, won the first places in Level 1 and Level 2 contests, respectively, while two contestants from Glastonbury, CT, Aditya Rajagopalan and Kiran Pendri, swept the top ranks in Level 3 and Level 4 contests, respectively.

Rajiv Tarigopula from Chesterfield, MO, and Kshithij Shrinath from Sunnyvale, CA, won the second place in Senior and Junior Spelling Bee, while Krithika Varagur from Edison, NJ, and aspiring figure skater Ami Parekh from Burtonsville, MD, were the runner-ups in Junior and Senior Vocabulary, respectively.

Tarigopula was the 2003 Junior Vocabulary Champion and 2003 Senior Spelling Bee runner-up. Nandhini Sundaresan from Alpharetta, GA, had the unique distinction of securing the 3rd place in both the Senior Spelling and Junior Vocabulary Bees. Akshayraj Aitha from Dublin, CA, and Megha Raghavan from Saratoga, CA, won the third place in Junior Spelling Bee and Senior Vocabulary Bees respectively.

In the Level 1 Math Bee (Grade 2 and lower), Aditya Kotecha from Union City, CA and Neel Mehta from Audobon, PA, were awarded the 2nd rank jointly. In Level 2, Krishna Hegde from Munster, IN, and Virup Gubba from Cupertino, CA, won the 2nd and 3rd ranks. Similarly Mahadev Nair from Overland Park, KS, and Arka Mallela from Roswell, GA, won the 2nd and 3rd place in Level 3, while Yasaswi Raparla from Reston, VA, and Aman Nalavade from Blue Bell, PA, won the same ranks for Level 4.

The spelling and vocabulary were held in three phases with the last round being an elimination round that made it quite exciting. The Math Bee was held in two phases, one written and another a lightning round with questions displayed on a screen for 60 seconds.

The Junior Spelling Bee winner Shivashankar is an aspiring neurosurgeon and figure-skater and is in the special education program offered for exceptional students by the Kansas State Department of Education, the release said.

She is also interested in ballet, ice-skating, Bharatanatyam and swimming. Through a Dollar-A-Square (DAS) program, she raised $200 for the foundation to help a child go to college in India by allowing an option to the guests at her birthday party to donate money in lieu of gifts. Shivashankar shares her love for Harry Potter with the Senior Bee winner Aamani who tied for 4th place and was the youngest in Illinois state Scripps-Howard contest in 2004. Aamani likes art and plays Chess, a game in which she has won several trophies.

The Senior Vocabulary winner, Pillai, is proficient in Carnatic music and violin and achieved the 8th rank in the 2004 Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee, the release said.

A seventh grader in Silver Springs magnet school, Oza, the Junior Vocabulary winner, is an avid Chess player and represented his school in eight competitive activities in Chess and computer science, for which he was awarded the Ad Astra certificate of merit, the release added.

The Math Bee Level 1 winner, Sidhharth, is an accomplished poet and had two of her poems published recently in the Anthology of Poetry by Young Americans and in A Celebration of Young Poets. The Level 2 winner Ajjanagadde loves Math and is interested in sports and Indian desserts. Rajagopalan, the Level 3 Math Bee winner, has natural problem solving skill. The Level 4 winner, Kiran Pendri is a Deans list honors student and has been an elected representative of Choate Rosemary Halls judiciary committee.

(Compiled from a press release by Nishant Arora)