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Coloradan still in running at bee

Kayla Hudson will fulfill dream of being in TV spelling battle

M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 1, 2006 at midnight

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WASHINGTON - An Aurora eighth-grader surprised herself on Wednesday and survived an unusually brutal first day of competition at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Kayla Hudson, a 13-year-old Liberty Middle School student sponsored by the Rocky Mountain News, aced a written test and correctly spelled xyloglyphy, Gideon and streptomycin on stage to move into today's nationally televised finals.

"I was really shocked. I didn't think I'd get a word I knew," Hudson said after she became one of 46 young spellers left from the original 274-speller field.

On Wednesday night, she planned to eat some "brain food," then get ready to realize her dream of appearing on the ESPN broadcast starting at 10 a.m. MDT.

"I was just surprised I made it this far," she said excitedly.

The day one competition proved disappointing for veteran Colorado speller Maithreyi Gopalakrishnan, a 13-year-old seventh grader from Peak to Peak Charter School in Lafayette, who was sponsored by the Daily Camera of Boulder.

Gopalakrishnan was making her third consecutive trip to the national competition. After the morning written test, she was one of 97 competitors who advanced.

But in the third round she stumbled on the word betta, an exotic fighting fish, and left the auditorium too disappointed to talk to reporters, said her father, Murali Gopalakrishnan.

"She's a little upset right now," he said. After she studied every weeknight and up to five or six hours on the weekends, he said, "she expected to do better."

But she wasn't alone. More than 80 percent of the national competitors had early exits.

By bee standards, the day's competition proved to be particularly rough - even for young brainiacs who eat words like pathognomonic and neuromyelitis for breakfast.

So many competitors were knocked out by the early part of the fourth round that the day's competition was halted early. Otherwise, there might not have been enough competitors to last through five hours of national television coverage today.

Founded in 1925, the Scripps National Spelling Bee has become a pop culture phenomenon in the past few years, thanks to a recent documentary film as well as this year's Hollywood feature Akeelah and the Bee.

High-stakes spelling has become so popular that grown-ups are even getting in on the fun. A Washington, D.C., nightclub called the Warehouse has spelling contests on Monday nights.

The adults can have their little game, but the national glory goes to the winner of tonight's contest, which is sponsored by The E.W. Scripps Company, parent of the Rocky Mountain News and the Daily Camera.

Spelling bee on TV

• The first portion of today's Scripps National Spelling Bee will be televised live on ESPN starting at 10 a.m. Championship rounds will be televised from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on KMGH-Channel 7.