She mistakenly used an “i” instead of a “y” as the last letter of the word “polygamy.” The audience gasped. “I’m sorry, that’s incorrect,” said the announcer, television commentator and columnist Cal Thomas.

It was down to two spellers at the Scripps Regional Spelling Bee on Saturday. A nervous tension had settled over the crowd gathered at the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, watching as the group of spellers on the stage was gradually whittled down.
Patriarch.
Streusel.
Diphthong.

The elementary and middle school students who stumbled on the spellings were out.
But those who remained on stage were a step closer to the 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington. Televised nationally, the event determines the country’s top speller and launches the winner into the national spotlight.

The county competition came down to a tall, lanky eighth-grader, Lanson Tang, and, to some surprise, a fourth-grade Cold Spring Elementary student, Karis Ryu. Four years younger than many of her competitors, Karis, 9, was so small she had to pull the microphone down each time she took the stage. Speaking the letters slowly and distinctly, she rarely paused to ask for a definition or a language of origin. Karis had left nearly all her competitors in the dust — until, more than 30 rounds deep into the competition, she mistakenly used an “i” instead of a “y” as the last letter of the word “polygamy.”

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