missouri spelling bee runs out of words

Epic Spelling Bee Ends in Draw

There was no quit in two Missouri elementary students who went above and beyond the rest of their fellow competitors in an epic marathon spelling bee contest held this past Saturday at the Kansas City Public Library, Plaza Branch located in Kansas City Missouri. Young Ms. Sophia Hoffman, who is a fifth-grader at Highland Park Elementary and young Mr. Kush Sharma, who is a seventh-grader at Frontier School of Innovation went through sixty-six (66) rounds before the judges called the contest a tie because they ran out of words. Ms. Hoffman’s and Mr. Sharma’s closest competitors, which started with twenty-five (25) students, were eliminated at round nineteen (19). At round forty (40) the judges officially ran out of words and had to refer through an available dictionary for additional words which carried them through twenty additional rounds.

The outreach coordinator for Kansas City Public Library, Ms. Mary Olive Thompson noted that when the judges had to resort to the dictionary for additional words, they still had to maintain a degree of difficulty and maintain the competitive integrity of the spelling bee.

“We wanted to be a bit more calculated and neutral, and we wanted to give each an equal opportunity,”

Ms. Hoffman and Mr. Sharma will compete in a “Spell Off” of sorts next month with the winner moving on to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Source: CNN