Saving the bee: Local woman comes to rescue of longtime spelling competition

2014 Jackson County Spelling Bee

When: 9 a.m. Saturday

Where: Kansas City Central Library, 14 W. 10th St.

What: Part 2 of a showdown that began Feb. 22 picks back up with the two remaining contestants: Kush Sharma, a seventh-grader from Kansas City’s Frontier School of Innovation, and Sophia Hoffman, a fifth-grader at Highland Park Elementary in Lee’s Summit.

They battled tooth and nail, noun and verb so long that the judges ran out of words, forcing a break in the action. Today’s winner goes to the big event in Washington, D.C., the Scripps National Spelling Bee, in May.

This story was originally published March 7, 2014 at 4:24 PM with the headline "Saving the bee: Local woman comes to rescue of longtime spelling competition."