Lim bows out of spelling bee

Published 5:35 pm Thursday, May 30, 2013

By Mike Voss

Lauren Lim’s run at the Scripps National Spelling Bee is over.

Although the winner of the 2013 Downeast North Carolina Regional Spelling Bee correctly spelled “charlatan” and “tachycardia” in round two and round three, respectively, but her combined score with the preliminary written test didn’t qualify her for the semifinals. Forty-one spellers were selected to complete in the final rounds.

Lauren, 12, is a seventh-grader at Hope Middle School.

“Although she didn’t advance to the semifinal, she has been enjoying this wonderful experience. She may have one more chance for this challenge next year with more experience,” wrote her father, Kwang Hun Lim, in an email received by the Daily News on Thursday morning.

He accompanied Lauren to the national spelling bee in Washington, D.C.

In addition to the all-expenses-paid trip to the nation’s capital, Lauren’s other prizes for winning the regional spelling be 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.

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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