Lim wins spelling bee
Published 8:10 am Sunday, March 17, 2013
“Efficacy” may be Lauren Lim’s new favorite word.
By spelling the word correctly in the final round of the 21st-annual Downeast North Carolina Regional Spelling Bee on Saturday, Lauren earned the right to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee scheduled for May 28-30 in Washington, D.C.
After second-place finisher Carson Creef, a student at Manteo Middle School misspelled “philippic,” Lauren was given “efficacy” to spell. The slight smile on her face gave evidence she knew how to spell the word. Efficacy means to produce an effect. Lauren did just that.
Lauren, who turns 12 Monday, is a seventh-grader at Hope Middle School. She competed in the regional spelling bee last year.
“I just look it up on the Internet and listened to them,” Lauren said when asked how she prepared for the regional spelling bee.
“Very,” she replied when asked if she were nervous during the competition held at Washington High School’s Performing Arts Center.
Lauren said the word “terrapin” gave her the most trouble during the regional spelling bee.
Kwang Hun Lim, Lauren’s father, and her mother, Young Mi Kim, were beaming with pride at their daughter’s victory.
“I’m very proud of her,” said her father.
“She studied like three or four hours (a day) for two weeks,” he said of how she prepared for the regional spelling bee.
Lauren’s father plans to accompany her to the national spelling bee. In addition to the all-expenses-paid trip to the nation’s capital, Lauren’s other prizes include a Merriam-Webster Third New International Dictionary, a $100 Series EE U.S. savings bond, a one-year subscription to Encyclopedia Britannica Online, a $20 Amazon.com gift certificate, a $30 Wal-Mart gift card and a first-place trophy.
Paul Seyler, a student at First Flight Middle School, took home the third-place trophy.
Thirty-six students completed Saturday. Beaufort County students who competed included Rhys Alligood, Bath Elementary School; Jamya Moore, Chocowinity Middle School; Brence Thompson, John Small Elementary School; Nicholas Crisp, Northeast Elementary School; Kennedy Landen, P.S. Jones Middle School and Kiara Miller, S.W. Snowden Elementary School.
The Washington Daily News and PotashCorp-Aurora sponsor the regional spelling bee.
About Mike Voss
Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.
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