Dallas Boy Is Letter Perfect

An eighth-grader from Dallas has been crowned the 2003 National Spelling Bee champion. And the winning word, luckily for 13-year-old Sai Gunturi, was one he had studied -- "Pococurante."

``I studied it,'' a beaming Sai said of the word after winning the contest, $12,000 and other prizes. ``That's why I was kind of laughing.''

After repeat trips to the contest, the fourth time was a charm for Sai.

"Pococurante" means "caring little" or "indifferent." Word for word, Sai outspelled 250 others in this dog-eat-dog contest to experience the thrill of victory.

This year's competition was the largest ever, with spellers ranging in age from 8 to 15, and evenly divided between boys and girls, reports CBS' Teri Okita.

But there's also the agony of defeat. The pressure is intense -- not only in so many words, but also, in their faces.

Most of the words are so difficult -- pratincolous, quatorzain, suggillation -- that we couldn't even find them in our common desktop dictionary. We had to go to the big, unabridged book!

This year's competition is the largest ever; spellers range in age from eight to 15-years and are evenly divided between boys and girls.

And to the victor go the spoils. Sai wins $12,000, a championship cup, and what else? A set of encyclopedias.