<p>   u00a0</p>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   Snigdha Nandipati, a 14-year-old Indian American girl, correctly spelled &quot;guetapens&quot;, French for ambush, to win the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee crown and retain the coveted honour for the community for the fifth year in a row.</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   &quot;It&#39;s a miracle,&quot; said Nandipati from San Diego, California, as she pipped fellow Indian American Stuti Mishra, 14, of West Melbourne, Florida who stumbled over &quot;schwarmerei&quot;, German for extravagant enthusiasm, in the last round of the final at a convention centre outside Washington Thursday night.</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   Nandipati, an avid reader and coin collector who aspires to become a psychiatrist or neurosurgeon, gets $30,000 in cash, a trophy, a $2,500 savings bond, a $5,000 scholarship, $2,600 in reference works from the Encyclopedia Britannica and an online language course.</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   Nandipati plays violin and is fluent in Telugu. She is the fifth consecutive Indian-American winner and 10th in the last 14 years.</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   The Indian-American community&#39;s victory run began in 1999 when Nupur Lala captured the crown and was later featured in the documentary &quot;Spellbound&quot;.</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   Anamika Veeramani scored a hat-trick for Indian-Americans by taking the crown in 2010.</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   With Arvind Mahankali, 12, of Bayside Hills, New York, a finalist for the last two years, the three Indian American kids were the top spellers left in the last round from among the nine who made the finals Thursday.</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   Forty-one spellers, meanwhile, heard the dreaded bell that signals an incorrect spelling in the semi-finals. Those included one of the favorites, 10-year-old Vanya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas. The younger sister of the 2009 champion got the only perfect score in the preliminary rounds.</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   Breezily confident through the first two semifinal rounds, Shivashankar was flummoxed by &quot;pejerrey&quot;, a small fish. She went with &quot;perjere&quot;.</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   Another Indian American fifth-time competitor, Rahul Malayappan, also did not make the finals.</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   u00a0</div>  <div id="cke_pastebin">   The finals did not include the youngest speller in bee history, six-year-old Lori Anne Madison of Lake Ridge, Virginia, who was eliminated during the preliminary rounds when she misspelled one of her two words -- &quot;ingulvies&quot; (the crop, or craw, of birds) -- and then fell short on her written test.</div>

Snigdha Nandipati correctly spelled "guetapens" to win the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee competition.

Snigdha Nandipati wins fifth Spelling Bee crown for Indian-Americans

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Snigdha Nandipati wins fifth Spelling Bee crown for Indian-Americans

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