WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Past Spelling Bee Champions
Max Nisen From Business Insider
You obviously have to be pretty bright and extremely dedicated to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
But does that lead to future success?
For the most part, yes. Among the winners, there are lots of graduates of top schools, and plenty of successes.
Unsurprisingly, many of them go into brainy professions, becoming doctors and lawyers. But there are some pretty unusual choices too, from a Web entrepreneur, to a voice-over actor, and a professional poker player.
One became a prominent journalist and was part of a newspaper team that won a Pulitzer prize.
1992 winner Amanda Goad went to Harvard Law School and now works as a staff lawyer on the ACLU’s LGBT and AIDS rights project.
1981 winner Paige Pipkin Kimble, see attachment, right, was runner up in 1980 to Jacques Bailly, left. She couldn’t shake the spelling bee; she currently serves as its executive director.
Bailly, the 1980 winner, is an associate professor of Classics at the University of Vermont and the bee’s official pronouncer.
Pratyush Buddiga, the 2002 winner, is a fixture on the professional poker circuit.
Here’s a picture of him getting interviewed at a European Poker tour event, 10 years later – see attachment
Rebecca Sealfon, the 1997 winner, remembered for screaming each letter of her last word, is the founder and CEO of Research Match, a startup that helps professors and students collaborate.
If you’ve ever played Big Game Hunter 2012, you can hear freelance voice-actor and 1984 winner Dan Greenblatt say “Top of the food chain, baby!”
1969 winner Susan Yoachum was a journalist and part of a San Jose Mercury News team that won a Pulitzer in 1989. She later became political editor of The San Francisco Chronicle.
Jody-Anne Maxwell, the first non-American winner, who won in 1998, became a celebrity in Jamaica after her victory. She was, as of 2012, a law student.
Frank Neuhauser won the very first spelling bee with the world “Gladiolus” and was a patent lawyer at GE and Bernard Rothwell & Brown. He lived to age 97.
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