Two Iowans are still in the running at the national spelling bee in Washington. 14-year-old Jonathon Hahn of Dubuque and Mattias Gassman of Ames are still among contestants at the Scripps-Howard spelling bee. Tuesday each correctly spelled a list of 25 words from boeotian to rijsttafel. In Round Two today Mattias correctly spelled “cachexia”, then “arrogate” in round 3, and Joseph managed “gnomic,” followed by “rapacious.” This is the first year a written round came at the start, as past contestants have often said the fright induced by speaking before an audience made them fail at words they could have gotten if the opening round hadn’t been an oral one. A winner will get 17-thousand dollars in cash prizes and all spellers get a bag of gifts from t-shirts to a thesaurus and electronic dictionary.
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