By David Whitney - Bee Washington Bureau Published 12:00 am PDT Friday, June 1, 2007 Story appeared in METRO section, Page B2.
WASHINGTON -- Josephine Kao, the Sacramento area's 12-year-old champion speller, finally encountered a word she couldn't puzzle through Thursday. The moment came in the sixth round, midway through the semifinals of the 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee.
The lights were glaring. ESPN was carrying it live. Josephine stepped to the microphone, the first up after a 90-second commercial break.
"Tournure," said pronouncer Jacques A. Bailly.
"Tournure," repeated Josephine.
"At first, it wasn't evident. She asked for the definition. She asked for its language of origin. She wrote the word out on her hand; her index finger was her pencil. "It's some kind of skirt thing?"
There. That's when the packed, silent auditorium knew. Josephine didn't know the word, a noun meaning a device to expand a woman's skirt, like a bustle.
"T-o-r-n-u-r-e."
Ding.
And with that, Josephine walked from the stage, following the path trod by 253 of the nation's top young spellers before her, to start work on the competition for the big show in 2008.
Minutes later, emerging with her mother Peggy Kao from the "comfort room" to the warm embrace of her father, Roseville physician Steven Kao, and 10-year-old brother Wesley, Josephine said she was caught off-guard by the word.
"I don't think I had heard of it before," she said. "It's sort of a weird word. But I only missed it by one letter."
A year ago, Josephine washed out in the fourth round. What impressed her most on Thursday wasn't that she had moved up to the ranks of the semifinals, but that she had survived the competition long enough to be on national television.
"I thought of all those people who would be watching," she said of her impressions as she stepped up to the microphone. She remembered the dozen or so of her friends who gave her a send-off at Sacramento International Airport at 6 a.m. Saturday, thinking they or their parents may have watched her on the tube."
The pride of her family was most evident in the comments of her young brother, also an aspiring champion speller. "Next year, maybe she'll be in the championship round," Wesley said.
In this year's championship round, Evan O'Dorney, a 13-year-old eighth-grader from Danville, captured the 80th annual championship by correctly spelling "serrefine" -- a small forceps for clamping a blood vessel.
Nate Gartke of Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada, also a 13-year-old eighth-grader, finished second.
Josephine Kao's father noted that there is an element of luck in the spelling bee. Spellers study all year from a variety of lists, some they make up themselves, only to be handed a word that was on none of them.
"But there are no losers here," Steven Kao said. "We are all winners."
Josephine, who was sponsored by The Bee, will return to Roseville with a commemorative watch, a $1,000 savings bond and $400 in cash for making it to the sixth round.
Josephine, a sixth-grader at Visions In Education Charter School in the San Juan Unified School District, can compete for two more years.
For Maheen Rana, 13, of Red Bluff, it was the end of the line. The eighth-grader was eliminated in the fifth round.
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