WHEN the Minister of Education sprang from his armchair and vaulted the VIP coffee table, grabbing a bowl of mints to deliver to this flabbergasted presenter, I knew the Spell-It-Right (SIR) Challenge national finals had blasted off from Auditorium Muzium Negara and reached orbit.

Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein’s outburst of exuberance, eliciting gales of hilarity from the audience, was his spontaneous response to a completely unexpected remark from eventual secondary-school runner-up Nurul Nadiah Nordin of SMK Bukit Rangin, Kuantan, who had cavalierly interrupted the proceedings to ask if I was hungry.

I was momentarily lost for words, though I should have seen it coming. Nadiah had telegraphed her feisty irreverence in the heats earlier that day, when she scolded my fellow presenter Balan Moses with the expostulation: “Why do people always forget there’s an ‘h’ in my name?!” Chastened, we had humbly apologised to this precocious 14-year-old upstart, who was now within spitting distance of winning the blue-riband event of the inaugural SIR Challenge. Unfortunately, that seemed only to encourage the little sprite, who now took me on in front of the Education Minister and the top brass of RHB and News Straits Times Press.

“Can I ask you something?” Nadiah boldly asked.

“Huh? What?” “Bessima and I,” Nadiah announced to me, the VIPs, the audience and the TV cameras, “were wondering if you’ve had enough to eat.” By then, the only three left on stage were Nadiah, who was Pahang state secondary-school SIR champion, Sabah’s Bessima Jamal of SMK Lok Yuk Likas, Kota Kinabalu, and Negri Sembilan’s Vikram Ramachandran of SMK King George V, Seremban. They had prevailed over the 11 other state champions and were now up against each other for the top prize.

“To what,” I blustered, “do I owe this cheekiness?!” But answer came there none, for by then Hishammuddin had demonstrated his unexpectedly impressive agility, delighting everyone present and especially the TV crews.

I can confidently report, therefore, that the Education Minister thoroughly enjoyed the SIR finals. Having driven down directly from Permatang Pauh, Hishammuddin must have felt as though he’d been teleported to another dimension, so far from his party-political concerns, yet so near the heart of his cabinet portfolio, was the event transpiring in that elegant art-deco auditorium.

The retro quaintness of the venue perfectly complemented the old-fashioned literacy displayed by the 28 SIR state winners as they competed to see who was best of all. Victor Teoh Yun-Chen of SK Bukit Damansara — he of the Chicken Little glasses and unfailingly grave demeanour — emerged as a primary school champion adored by all.

And secondary school SIR champion Bessima Jamal remained till the end the radiant paragon of calm competence she had been at the very first SIR state-level contest, in Kota Kinabalu last April.

But Vikram Ramachandran, second runner-up to Bessima and Nurul Nadiah, must know he could have taken them both. The final became an endurance event. One after another, the evenly matched trio kept ticking off the words on the list, step by step climbing up through the difficulty levels. I felt my worst fears being realised — these bright sparks were burning the list to ashes.

The words for SIR were compiled with one criterion that is not applied at the mother of all spelling contests, the United States’ legendary Scripps Spelling Bee. There, the words tested can be so obscure, the contest tips into more of a freak show than a test of skill.

The SIR Challenge, by contrast, banks on “living” words; words that enrich and empower a working vocabulary; words not unlikely to be encountered in literature and the global media, and therefore not necessarily unfamiliar to the mature and eclectic readers the best spellers tend to be.

Frankly, with finalists of this calibre, the contest is almost inevitably decided on the first to slip — and that was Vikram. After an immaculate performance since stepping up for his first word at the Negri Sembilan state challenge in June, where he scored a perfect record of 14 consecutive correct spellings on his way to the state championship and national finals, Vikram finally lost his vowels on “magnanimous”.

When Nurul Nadiah similarly stumbled on “lugubrious”, it was clear that Bessima would win not so much from besting as outlasting her top rivals. A spelling contest at this level is as much a test of mental stamina as intelligence. A steadfast presence of mind makes the winning difference.

It bears restating, then, that there must have been several dozen other SIR participants nationwide who would have followed the contest’s progress to the national finals in some anguish, knowing they could well have been among the 28 who made it to Auditorium Muzium Negara.

Only the fifth-formers among them, however, will have to miss the cut for future SIR Challenges. As we salute a fond farewell to Bessima, Vikram and their contemporaries, in gratitude for their participation and anticipation of their continuing success, we confirm that age is not a decisive factor in this competition.

We might well be meeting Victor Teoh and second-former Nurul Nadiah Nordin again and again over the projected duration of the RHB-NST SIR programme.

They should expect ever stiffer competition, however. There’s no doubt next year’s SIR Challenge will be bigger and better, with this year’s inaugural edition having culminated in such a coruscating parade of brilliant young Malaysians, to the pride of their parents and teachers, the satisfaction of the sponsors, the relief of the organisers, and the unbounded joy of the Education Minister.

NST Associate Editor Rehman Rashid was Chief Presenter and Chairman of the SIR Content Committee 2008