The popular stereotype of teenagers usually involves them being willfully uncommunicative. But that’s not true of 15-year-old Kate Moore: she’s just been crowned the United States texting champion.

Moore, of Des Moines, Iowa, took the $50,000 first prize by beating out 19 other finalists from among the quarter of a million people who entered the contest. That wasn’t a great surprise to people who know her, given than she claims to send around 500 texts a day.

Unlike some previous similar contests, there was more to the challenge than simply typing text messages the quickest. Early rounds included a quiz about popular acronyms used in text messages,  a test of sending messages whilst blindfold, and even a section where contestants had to send a message while completing an obstacle course.

A later round involved sending messages such as “Which wicked witch wished which more wicked witch in the well?” whilst being distracted by an actor making personal comments about relatives whilst dressed as an emoticon. And that’s a sentence you never expected to read at BLORGE.

The final round pitted Moore against a rival in a best-of-three speed challenge in which they had to send complex messages complete with an exact replication of some unorthodox spelling, punctuation and capitalization. She took the win by taking less than a minute to send the deciding message, “Zippity Dooo Dahh Zippity Ayy…MY oh MY, what a wonderful day! Plenty of sunshine Comin’ my way….Zippitty Do Dah Zippity Aay! WondeRful Feeling Wonderful day!”

Personally I’m not that impressed by the challenges facing the finalists. If they want to see tough texting, they should try using my second-hand phone, which was passed on to me by my marching band-loving wife. You try writing a coherent message on a device that thinks somebody typing in the letters “m” and “e” must always be referring to a mellophone…

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 4:02 pm under Cell phones.

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