A Conyers girl lost out to last year's champion in Wednesday's faceoff of the nation's fastest texters.
Ava Gude, 17, a recent graduate of Rockdale Magnet School, competed in the LG U.S. National Texting competition in Times Square. Last year's champ Austin Weirschke, beat out Ava and nine others from across the nation to walk away with the $50,000 grand prize.
They competed in three areas: speed, accuracy and dexterity, and in three rounds: texting while blindfolded, texting with hands behind their backs and "text blitz," where contestants are shown phrases to copy as fast as they can before a new phrase is shown.
"I'm nervous, but I'll win if it was meant to be," Ava told the AJC — by text, of course.
It's her first trip to New York, but she hasn't yet had much time for sightseeing.
"I'm just trying to practice until my thumbs fall off lol," Ava texted from her hotel room. "I've been practicing on an app that tells me my mistakes and how fast I'm typing." You lose points for any inaccuracy in the text message, she noted.
Ava said an ad on MTV prompted her to shoot for the competition because she's "texting all the time to parents' dismay," she wrote.
"She's out in the fifth round," texted Ava's mother Stephanie Nunez after her daughter's loss. "Still a winner of a free trip to NYC and a winner to us." Ava plans to attend Campbell University in North Carolina and study pre-pharmacy.
This is the fifth year cell phone maker LG Mobile has held the U.S. National Texting Championship.
