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Laodicean means indifferent or lukewarm especially in matters of religion or politics. Honestly, I didn’t know what it means and this is just my first time to come across this word. But the Laodicean word gave the 13-year-old Kansas girl, Kavya Shivashankar, to win the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee contest.

Kavya would always wite down the word on her palm and end it with a smile. After she spelled Laodicean rightly, which is the winning word, Kavya got huge hugs from father Mirle, mother Sandy and little sister Vanya.

“I can’t believe it happened. It feels kind of unreal.”, our winner said.

“The competitiveness is in her,” Mirle Shivashankar said. “But she doesn’t show that. She still has that smile. That’s her quality.”

During the earlier rounds, Kavya spelled tricky words like “hydrargyrum,” “blancmange” and “baignoire” pretty smoothly.  Aside from the big trophy, she took home with her more than $40,000 in cash and prizes.

This would be her fourth appearance in the yearly competition. Just like any other normal child, Kavya also enjoys playing the violin, bicycling, swimming and learning Indian classical dance. Her role model is Nupur Lala, the 1999 champion featured in the documentary “Spellbound.”

Tim Ruiter was the runner up after he incorrectly spelled the word “maecenas” and third-place finisher Aishwarya Pastapur was eliminated on the word “menhir.