The Bee Word

We told you last week about the local kids who'd made it to the nationals in both the Geography Bee and the Spelling Bee.

First, the Geography Bee, which Seattlest watched and had the curious experience of basically not having a clue on any of the questions. Sammamish's own Max Sugarman fared well--he made the final ten, and won our hearts by announcing to Alex Trebek that he was wearing otter socks and also an otter shirt under his regulation polo, even, but, alas, he went out in the middle, cheerfully and cutely.

The Spelling Bee, as always, tested our endurance. These kids know how to stretch it out when they're struggling. They repeat the word, they ask for the word to be repeated, they ask for the language of origin, they ask for the definition, they ask for alternate pronounciations, they ask for the word to be used in a sentence. Oh, the stalling! The only time it is bearable is when the kids from Jamaica do it, since it's done in a polite and charming lilt. The rest of the time, you just want them to get to the spelling already.

Claire Nieman (pictured), a 13-year-old from Bothell, fared the best of the Washingtonians. She lasted to the fifth round, where she misspelled glottalize. Round two decimated the others: Travis Stephens (Bremerton) went out on comandancia; Ginny Butler (Mount Vernon) on emphysematous; and Wenatchee's own Andrew Kaleohano mysteriously dropped out after round two, even though he spelled myxomycete correctly (perhaps he is a Radiohead fan).

Get this--there was one kid in both bees: Bonny Jain of Moline, Illinois. But the grand champion is none other than Anurag Kashyap of San Diego, who won on appoggiatura. Our widget dictionary tells us it's "a grace note performed before a melody and typically having half its time value."