The RHB-NST Spell-It-Right Challenge saw the biggest number of participants yet in Selangor and a standout team in Negri Sembilan, writes NURJEHAN MOHAMED

IT was Vikram Ramachandran's game all the way last weekend at the Negri Sembilan leg of the RHB-New Straits Times Spell-It-Right (SIR) Challenge.

The fifth-former from SMK King George V sailed through the competition, correctly spelling all 14 words he faced on his way to the top.

Words such as "cacophony", "odious", "psychedelic", "coalesced", "caramelise" and "pachyderm" proved child's play for him.

So impressive was he that presenter and chief judge for the leg Balan Moses says Vikram might very well feature among the top five in the national finals in Kuala Lumpur on Aug 9.
"He is evidently a steady and well-read student," says Moses. "As I uttered a word, a huge smile would break out on his face, indicating he knew the spelling for the word."

Vikram, however, attributed his victory partly to Lady Luck. "It was quite a challenging contest," he says. "I was lucky I knew the words I got. Some of my friends were knocked out by words I didn't know at all."

Vikram's strength was ably reflected among his KGV team-mates, says Moses. "The KGV team stood out from the start, being made up of equally strong members. If it had been an individual event, they would have all been leading the competition as they were all good."

In Petaling Jaya, meanwhile, the competition saw the largest participation to date — 43 primary and 35 secondary schools turned up to compete for the Selangor state championship.

The normally busy Subang Parade mall saw an even bigger crowd over the weekend as families, teachers and friends came to support the contestants.

Ahmad Fairuz Zainol Abidin, a deputy public prosecutor, was there to watch his son Ahmad Ashman perform.

"My son did not want us to be here," said Ahmad Fairuz. Little did Ashman know that his entire family had turned up, including his grandmother and aunt.

The Year Four boy did not make it to the finals, stumbling on "upholstery" after getting "expedition" right, and came off the stage close to tears. But his dad says the 10-year-old can try again next year.

Shahidah Kamarudin was at the mall on Sunday to support the Sekolah Agama Menengah Tinggi Tengku Ampuan Jemaah team, whom she tutors in English.

She considered the event a positive competition that students should be involved in — her own child was a participant in the Junior SIR Challenge for lower-primary pupils.

"I always thought how nice it was that the United States had the Scripps Spelling Bee and what a pity Malaysia didn't have a spelling competition of its own," she says.

Her students did quite well, coming in just one point short of being on the podium as one of the top three schools.

It was diminutive 13-year-old Sanjivan Ellamaran of SMK Darul Ehsan, however, who caught the eyes of the judges and the hearts of the audience.

His teacher, Emily Martha Dorall, had assembled a team of four first-formers as Muhammad Siraj Munir Mohd Othman, Sanjivan's team-mate, had badly wanted to take part in the competition, and she thought it would be an interesting one.

Sanjivan entered the finals after correctly spelling "restrained" and "entomology", beating out a host of older students in the process.

Although he did not make it to the podium, Sanjivan has been bitten by the spelling bug and looks forward to competing in future spelling contests.

Presenter and chief judge of the Selangor competition Rehman Rashid said the proportion of very good spellers seemed higher than in other states, where there would normally be just a few standouts.

"The winners fully deserve their victories," he said, "but they're not the only ones who could have won."

He said that many other competitors could have taken the contest, though the luck of the draw clearly fell on secondary school champion Andrew Chong Zhi Wei and primary school champion Nur Yasmin Ahmad Rizal.