By DEVIN WEEKS

Staff Writer

COEUR d’ALENE — Reigning North Idaho Regional Spelling Bee champ Joseph Moran is heading to Washington, D.C., today — again — to showcase his spelling chops on the national stage.

This year, he's working harder than ever to make it as far as possible.

"I have been studying probably nearly twice as hard," he said. "I've really got a feel for it now, and I'm really getting serious because I’m determined to make the finals."

The Press has sponsored a regional spelling bee in North Idaho for the past 15 years. No local speller has advanced to the Scripps National Spelling Bee finals.

Joseph, an Inland Northwest Christian Homeschool seventh-grader, already has made local history. In March he became the first student to win the regional bee three consecutive times.

Next week, he’ll compete against 564 spellers age 7 to 15 from across the country. They’ll be spelling their hearts out to win the largest grand prize in bee history: $50,000 cash, an engraved trophy, $2,500 from Merriam-Webster, a reference library and $400 of reference works from Encyclopædia Britannica.

"I don't think I'm any more or less nervous than I have been in the past,” Joseph said. “I know what to expect, but that doesn't make me less nervous. When I came the first year, I hadn't really grasped just quite how hard it was, and I had somewhat of a sense of confidence because I wasn't expecting that. Now I have a full idea of how it is."

During his first experience, in 2017, Joseph missed advancing to the finals by just one point. Last year he went out spelling his second on-stage word, "conventicle."

"There are some words that don't follow any spelling rules," he said. "There are a lot of weird ones, even at regionals, but the nice thing at regionals is you have an over-1,000-word list to study from, and the first 20 or 40 rounds they’ll only give you words off that list."

He has a strong knowledge of that list, and he knows when to ask for roots, word origins and examples to give himself a few more seconds to think about how to spell the word.

"At nationals, most of the words you're not going to know, so you really need to ask those questions to know how the word might be spelled," he said.

Maybe Joseph's third time will be the charm.

The regional spelling bee is hosted by North Idaho College. The Coeur d’Alene Press pays all expenses for the winning speller and a guardian to compete in the national bee.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee will air on ESPN 3. The preliminary rounds will be shown Tuesday from 6:45 a.m. to 1:35 p.m. and from 1:45 to 3:30 p.m. PDT. On Wednesday from 5 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., the competition shifts to ESPN 2. The finals will air Thursday from 7 to 11 a.m. and from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on ESPN.

Info: www.spellingbee.com