National Spelling Bee Winner 2007 a BoyIt came down to three boys and one girl. The National Spelling Bee winner for 2007 was Evan Odorney who spelled correctly the word "Serrefine". This marks two out of three years that a Californian has won the National Spelling Bee.
The final four were all in their final years of qualification. The boys were big 1-5 favorite to win heading into the competition. (see
Sportsbook.com for betting odds)
Isabel Jacobson was the last of the girls to be eliminated with a misspelling of "Cyanophycean" - a blue-green alga (Greek origin).
Samir Patel, the big early favorite to win the 2007 National Spelling Bee, was eliminated earlier in the day.
A record 286 spellers came into the Scripps National Spelling Bee this year. This also became a competition between the USA vs Canada in the end as Evan Odorney of the US went up against Canadian Nate Gartke.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee (formerly known as the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee and commonly referred to simply as the National Spelling Bee) is a highly competitive annual spelling bee run on a not-for-profit basis by The E. W. Scripps Company, held in the ballroom at the Grand Hyatt Washington hotel in Washington, D.C. The competition is open to the winners of sponsored regional spelling bees held mostly throughout the United States. Contestants from Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, New Zealand, and the Bahamas have participated in the Scripps National Spelling Bee as well.
A recent trend in the bee is the large number of Indian American participants and winners since Balu Natarajan won the competition in 1985. 5 of the last 7 champions, the top 4 competitors in 2005 and 30 out of the 97 competitors to clear the written round in 2006 were of the Indian American community. This has led to significant media coverage of the event in India, though none of the remaining four contestants were of Indian-American descent.
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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com
Originally published May 31, 2007 9:55 pm ET
