The 26th annual Sanders County Spelling Bee was held at the courthouse in Thompson Falls on Friday. Participants from Noxon, Dixon, Trout Creek, Thompson Falls, Plains, and Hot Springs competed for the privilege of representing the county at the state competition held at Montana State University in Billings in March.

Sponsored by First Security Bank and the Sanders County Ledger, the event was attended by approximately 20 students with family and friends filling the spectator section of the courtroom. Judged by Linda McKahan, Bina Eggensperger and Bee Director Sara Czerwinski, the bee also featured Sanders County Commissioner Tony Cox pronouncing words for the competitors.

The event began with instructions from the judges and then a practice round with no penalty for incorrect answers. After the practice round, the real competition commenced.

The first round began with words such as mitigate, constitutional, authoritative, pantheon and artifice. Tougher words came with the second and third rounds eliminating over half the field.

Words such as quantitative, incandescence, nuance and solitaire proved difficult for even the strongest spellers. The field was narrowed down to three competitors in later rounds. In order to prove victorious, the winner needed to correctly spell two words in a row with the rest of the participants spelling incorrectly.

With only three spellers still standing, the winning round came down to the word quiver. Correctly spelled by Derick Curry of Plains, the competition took nearly 20 rounds to complete. Second place went to Jaden Coston of Dixon while third place went to Delaney Weltz of Noxon.

When asked how it felt to be the Sanders County representative to the state spelling bee, Curry replied, “It feels great. This is crazy. It feels amazing.”

Curry will compete in the Treasure State Spelling Bee held in Billings in March. The winner of that competition may qualify to advance to the Scripps National Spelling Bee held in Washington, D.C. on June 1.