US SPELLING BEE (Hpward scripps)
Thirteen-year-old Sameer Mishra, a four-time veteran of the National Spelling Bee
Mishra took home the $35,000 cash award and $5,000 in other prizes.
Sameer, appearing in the bee for the fourth time and a top 20 finisher the last two years, clenched both fists and put his hands to his face after spelling the winning word. He won a tense duel over first-time participant Sidharth Chand, 12, of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., who finally stumbled on "prosopopoeia," a word describing a type of figure of speech.
Out of the List of Winners, in Top 20, five are Indian-American:

• Sameer Mishra (the winner)
• Sidharth Chand (2nd place)
• Samia Nawaz (4th place tie)
• Kavya Shivashankar (4th place tie)
• Jahnavi Iyer (8th place tie)

US GEOGRAPHY BEE (national Geographic)
Akshay Rajagopal, the youngest competitor at the 2008 National Geography Bee, won the competition May 21 in Washington D.C., with a perfect score.
Rajagopal is only the second winner in the Bee’s 20-year history to achieve a perfect score in the finals. “I was amazed that I won,” the 11-year-old from Lincoln, Nebraska told India-West.

More than five million students from throughout the country participated in this year’s competition, said a press release issued by the National Geographic Society. Last month, 100 students in each U.S. state, territory and the District of Columbia competed in the regional finals (I-W, Apr. 11). Fifty-five contestants competed in preliminary rounds May 20 and the top 10 contestants made it to the finals May 21.

Rajagopal received a $25,000 check and a lifetime subscription to National Geographic magazine.
Two other Indian Americans joined Rajagopal in the top 10: Nikhil Desai, 13, of Challenger School in Newark, Calif., and Milan Sandhu, 13, of Ross A. Lurgio Middle School in Bedford, N.H.