Bee keeps champion guessing, but there's no question about martyrize

Eighth-grader Hannah Jensen correctly spelled martyrize, grandiose and chevalier on her way to winning the Clark County Spelling Bee, but one question left her guessing Tuesday night.

"I have no idea why they call this a spelling bee," said Jensen, a 14-year-old who attends Garside Middle School.

Jensen wasn't alone. None of the teachers nor contestants at KLVX Channel 10 studios, where the bee was held, knew why a spelling contest is known as a bee, but one young man hazarded a guess.

"I don't know, maybe a bee once spelled something right," seventh-grader Remy Keller said.

Judge Robert Dowling, a former Clark County Spelling Bee champ who is now a freshman at the Las Vegas Academy, supplied the answer.

"It comes from quilting bees, which were a gathering of people to work together or compete in making quilts," Dowling said. "So a spelling bee is the coming together of people to compete at spelling."

Competition at the annual bee, which selects the top sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade spellers in the county, was fiercest between Jensen and Cameron Mackley as they vied for the eighth-grade crown.

Jensen and Mackley, from Lyon Middle School in Moapa Valley, both misspelled several words, including olivaceous, lorgnette and nonpareil before Jensen won the title by correctly spelling grandiose and martyrize.

"I'm really surprised because I seriously thought I would lose," Jensen said.

The single elimination competition features five participants at each grade level, and a champion can be crowned only after correctly spelling the runner-up's missed word and another word.

Sixth-grader Jim Hoffman of Sawyer Middle School beat David Blankenship of Brinley Middle School by spelling piqued and heiress. Seventh-grader Rachael Kramus of Hyde Park Middle School defeated Keller of Knudson by correctly spelling precocious and pachyderm.

Kramus, a defending county champion, is hoping to win the state honors this year.

"I look poised up there, but I'm really nervous," Kramus said after winning for the second year in a row. "My mom helps me go through the dictionary and spell words every day after school, and we'll keep doing that for the next round."

The three winners received $200 savings bonds and $25 gift certificates to Tower Records. The runners-up won $100 savings bonds.

The county winners will compete for the state title on March 27, and the three state champions will advance to the National Spelling Bee in Washington.

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