By Arun Kumar

Washington, June 2 (IANS) A 13-year-old eighth grader from New Jersey Katharine "Kerry" Close swept aside the Indian American Challenge to become the first "Queen Bee" since 1999 in US' most prestigious spelling contest that attracted over $70,000 in bets on its outcome.

Kerry was named the Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion in the 20th round after correctly spelling the word "ursprache", which is defined as "a parent language, especially one reconstructed from the evidence of later languages".

Only two Indian American students - Rajiv Tarigopula and Kavya Shivashankar - made it to the top five in the contest once dominated by them.

Tarigopula, 13, a national finalist for the past four years finished fourth after misspelling "Heiligenschein".

Shivashankar, 10, who was contesting the Bee for the first time, was the youngest in the 13 left for the final leg. She eventually stumbled on the word "gematrial".

Anandasivam, 13, from Brownsville, Texas, who was in his fourth consecutive national finals, was eliminated after he got the spelling of "paillon" wrong.

Outside the contest venue, an Internet sports betting company was taking bets on the Bee, including whether the winner would wear glasses and the final word would have an "e" in it.

Simon Noble, chief executive officer of PinnacleSports.com, said his company had received about $70,000 in bets on seven propositions about the Bee.

This year's winner Close, who had earlier correctly spelled a Sanskrit origin word, "kundalini", won $42,000 in cash and prizes for her efforts in this fifth appearance in the contest. She tied for seventh place in the 2005 national finals.

Finishing second in this year's competition was Finola Mei Hwa Hackett, 14, of Tofield in Alberta, Canada. The third place finisher was Saryn Rebecca Hooks, 14, of Taylorsville.

Earlier, 12-year-old Samir Patel, runner-up in last year's Scripps National Spelling Bee, sailed through three rounds Wednesday but then lost his chance at the national title.

Asked to spell "eremacausis," Samir, who is home-schooled in Colleyville, Texas, seemed disappointed when the judges couldn't produce answers to his questions about the word's root. He took a stab at spelling, but it came out wrong: "aeromocausis." The audience erupted with loud sighs and applause as he left the stage.

Wednesday's contests began with 21 spellers, including Samir. Among the 13 advancing to the next round were masters of words such as "boraginaceous", "anacoluthon" and "wapiti". Eight spellers stumbled on "gigerium", "empyreumatic", "mirliton" and other words.

ESPN has broadcast the second day of the Bee since 1994, but this year, in a nod to the popularity of "reality TV," the championship rounds were moved to ABC for a live, prime time broadcast before a larger audience.