The West Coast mobile phone texting champion is Eli Tirosh, a 21-year-old recent college graduate from Los Angeles. Later this month, she will compete in New York City for the LG National Texting Championship.

About 150 participants used their LG enV Qwerty keyboard mobile phones Saturday in the competition at the Paramount Studios in Hollywood to represent the West Coast. A spokesperson for LG said competitors were evenly divided between females and males. One top competitor, a teenaged girl, sends more than 5,000 text messages a month.

Tirosh won $10,000 as the top West Coast competitor. "We are still looking for the fastest texter in the U.S.," said Jon Maron, senior director of marketing for LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A., in a statement.

An East Coast champion texter, to be selected in another competition, and Tirosh will compete later this month for a $25,000 grand prize. LG, which said the competition is open to users of LG enV or V phones, said thousands of dollars in consolation prizes would also be awarded at the New York competition.

LG, which said it is sponsoring the competition to draw attention to the growing use of mobile phone texting, cited recent market research studies revealing that nearly 40% of mobile phone subscribers have used texting on their devices.