The 2013 MetLife South Asian Spelling Bee Reaches Texas Dallas & Houston Winners Announced

From left: First Runner Up Shourav Dasari of Pearland, TX alongside Regional Champ Shobha Dasari of Pearland, TX; Second Runner Up Himanvi Kopuri of Denver, CO with Rahul Walia, Founder of the South Asian Spelling Bee.

From left: First Runner Up Shourav Dasari of Pearland, TX alongside Regional Champ Shobha Dasari of Pearland, TX; Second Runner Up Himanvi Kopuri of Denver, CO with Rahul Walia, Founder of the South Asian Spelling Bee.

HOUSTON: The 2013 MetLife South Asian Spelling Bee (www.SouthAsianSpellingBee.com) continued its 12 city tour this past weekend reaching Texas with events in Dallas and Houston.

With a huge turnout this year as well, the bee attracted some top talent as well as young and new spellers that competed for the coveted prizes and titles.

“It is very heartening to see that each year we get fresh faces and new talent which is a continuing testimony to our community’s strength in this craft,” said Rahul Walia, Founder – South Asian Spelling Bee.

In Dallas, Chetan Reddy from Plano, TX was the regional champ and Lokesh Nagineni from Flower Mound, TX was the first runner up while Ansun Sujoe from Fort Worth, TX was second runner up.

From left: Regional Champ Chetan Reddy of Plano, TX alongside First Runner Up Lokesh Nagineni of Flower Mound, TX; Second Runner Up Anjun Sujoe of Fort Worth, TX with Rahul Walia, Founder of the South Asian Spelling Bee.

From left: Regional Champ Chetan Reddy of Plano, TX alongside First Runner Up Lokesh Nagineni of Flower Mound, TX; Second Runner Up Anjun Sujoe of Fort Worth, TX with Rahul Walia, Founder of the South Asian Spelling Bee.

“All the families should be proud of the skills these children demonstrated,” said Matthew Cranston, a registered representative from the Dallas office of New England Financial, which is a MetLife company. “By challenging themselves in this manner, these students saw the potential that can be unlocked through hard work, talent and dedication.”

In Houston, Shobha Dasari from Pearland, TX was the regional champ and Shourav Dasari from Pearland, TX was first runner up while Himanvi Kopuri from Denver, CO was second runner up.

“MetLife congratulates all of the families who took part in this year’s event. We were so pleased to see how many families participated in both the Dallas and Houston competitions,” said Omar Saeed, LUTCF, a financial services representative who works at MetLife’s Houston office.

Along with MetLife, airline major Air-India and education company C2Education have also come on board as sponsors for this event.

The winners received cash prizes of $500, $300 and $200 respectively.

Children up to 14 years of age are eligible to participate and the contest saw spellers of even 6 years of age compete and make it past a few rounds. There are 10 more cities on the anvil and for more information and to register your child, please visit www.SouthAsianSpellingBee.com.

The top two winners plus one parent each from every city will be given an all expenses paid trip to NJ on August 17 for the finals.

SONY Entertainment Television Asia is the exclusive broadcast partner for the MetLife South Asian Spelling Bee and will be airing the series across 120 countries.

Find us on Facebook at South Asian Spelling Bee and you can follow us on our Twitter handle at Spell South Asian.

To reserve your free passes to the Finals, please log on to www.SouthAsianSpellingBee.com and fill in your details.

About Touchdown Media Inc.:

Touchdown Media Inc. is a specialized South Asian advertising and promotions firm based in New Jersey. Now in its 10th successful year, Touchdown has helped clients- both mainstream and otherwise, reach out to the lucrative South Asian market, Touchdown Media represents more than 35 years of collective experience in this niche market. As a full service ad firm, Touchdown has helped many clients achieve their media and marketing goals within the South Asian Diaspora in the US.