The results are in. Were you a champion or were you just another one to bite the dust?

First off, welcome our new puzzler, Violabeenice!

New words? = Wow. Nerds!

Person of note: Freddie Mercury
1. Parsi (Indian of Persian descent)
2. Range
3. Monarch (Queen)
4. Theatrical

Box Tracers

1. Fred Rogers
2. Seacrest (Ryan)
3. Degeneres (Ellen)
4. Pat Sajak

Scores:
uberminz/violabeenice — 10
nettiebaron/Randy — 9
DG — 8
Beau — 3

I will just slightly apologize for Parsi/Paris. Either one would give you the ‘R’ in the right place so as not to indicate you had found the wrong word. I don’t believe there is any strong Paris connection to him other than that he has performed there, so I wanted a way to separate best from the almost best by throwing that one in there.

TLDR: Sorry, not sorry.