COEUR d'ALENE - After a flurry of consonants and vowels, two teams were left vying for the honor of being named the best adult spellers in Kootenai County.

There was silence in the audience as the two teams began their heavyweight bout in the Edminster Student Union at North Idaho College on Thursday afternoon. Both teams of three, Highway to Spell and Bee's Knees, were competing in their first Kootenai County Spelling Bee, and it was clear that both were hungry for a year's worth of bragging rights.

"Spelling isn't for sissies," said Lisa Nunlist, emcee and pronouncer, after Bee's Knees spelled the word vigintillion correctly.

The spelling bee was held by the Coeur d'Alene branch of the American Association of University Women as a fundraiser to provide scholarships to local students attending local universities. Maxine Sullivan, the organization's spokeswoman, told The Press she had the idea for an adult spelling bee four years ago while her grand-niece was competing in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

"I was sending an email off to my family saying that she clearly inherited her spelling abilities from her great aunt when all of a sudden it hit me - let's have a spelling bee," Sullivan said.

Funds are raised through sponsorships - those who participate get their business or organization's name on the T-shirt - and a luncheon that takes place during the event. This year's bee raised an estimated $3,000 for scholarships, which Sullivan said will be split into $1,000 awards for three female students.

Since the event has been tremendously successful for the past four years, Sullivan said, it will be Idaho's contribution to a publication the nationwide organization is putting together with fundraising ideas.

"I'm a spelling nerd and I think most of the people competing are as well," Sullivan said. "They not only like to spell, they like to show off - and you don't get too many chances to show off your spelling."

Highway to Spell, a team consisting of Coeur d'Alene City Attorney's Office employees, began the final rounds by correctly spelling the word "picaresque." If the Bee's Knees, a group of three women from St. Luke's Episcopal Church, had spelled the word incorrectly, Highway to Spell would have won it all by spelling their next word correctly.

But the Bee's Knees spelled the word "orthoepy" correctly, which launched a back and forth blitz of words that would have left Noah Webster checking his own dictionary.

"Alright, who's taking side bets out there?" Nunlist asked attendees while the tension built and the two teams continued to duke it out.

When the teams began struggling to correctly spell words like "terpsichorean" and "quinquevir," Nunlist eased back and went from words "that make you want to jump off a cliff" to words that simply made the contestants "want to die."

With exhaustion beginning to show on the competitors faces, the Bee's Knees caught a break when Highway to Spell forgot the "k" in "lackadaisical." The Bee's Knees had previously spelled "vigintillion" correctly, and spelled "reconnaissance" correctly to secure the win.

"It was a lot of fun," said David Judd, a member of Highway to Spell. "We will definitely be back next year."

Cary Miller, Martha Vilandre and Angela Francis were all smiles after winning the bee. Francis told The Press that the trio signed up for the competition at the last minute, and didn't have time to prepare or look at the word list.

"But it sounded like a lot of fun to us," Vilandre said.

"And it was," Francis replied.