Bee luck close at hand

Bee luck close at hand
New Jersey teen has angel with her.

Published Friday, June 2, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) - The winner of the first national spelling bee on prime-time network television didn’t display any made-for-reality-TV theatrics. She didn’t write imaginary letters in the air, scream her letters into the microphone or punch her fist when she got a word right.

No, all 13-year-old Katharine Close did was spell big words with a nod of the head and her hands in her pockets, her left hand clutching an unseen pendant labeled "Angel in My Pocket."

"It was given to me by a family in my town," said the eighth-grader from H.W. Mountz School in Spring Lake, N.J. "And I always put it in my pocket during spelling bees. I think it brings good luck for some reason."

Katharine’s modest but disarming smile turned into a gasp of joy yesterday when she aced "ursprache" - which means a parent language - to claim the Scripps National Spelling Bee title. She is the first girl to take the top prize in seven years.

"I couldn’t believe it. I knew I knew how to spell the word, and I was just in shock," said Katharine, who won more than $42,000 in cash and prizes. "I couldn’t believe I would win."

Katharine, who has studied words an hour or two each day for years, acknowledged that luck played a part. She had studied "ursprache" but didn’t know the words that eliminated the third- and fourth-place finishers.

"I was relieved I didn’t get those," Katharine said today on CBS’ "The Early Show."

The ratings will determine whether Katharine’s winning performance was worth two hours of prime-time programming on ABC, but there was little doubt that on a day when she was champion, TV ruled the show.

ESPN has broadcast the second day of the bee in the afternoon since 1994, but the contest’s growing popularity prompted the prime-time move that would yield a larger viewing audience at the expense of the flow of the competition. There were interminable delays for commercials and up-close-and-personal profiles of the contestants, piling on the boredom for some - as evidenced by on-stage yawns - and the anxiety for others.

"You’re about to go up to spell, and you have to wait about four minutes," Katharine said. "It’s kind of nerve-racking."