Bookworm, 13, latest reality TV star as contest spells unlikely success
FOR a teenager whose heart is set on becoming a journalist, Katharine Close is already making a good living out of words.
The 13-year-old bookworm from New Jersey beat a determined challenge from 274 other young hopefuls to win America's National Spelling Bee Championship in Washington DC by listing the letters of "ursprache", a German word meaning language, in the correct order.
Her remarkable talent for spelling some of the trickiest words in the dictionary also earned her the unlikely title of the country's newest reality television star alongside the $42,000 (22,300) top prize.
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