Six From Eastside In Regional Finals Of Spelling Bee

"Gnosticism," "millesimal," "amathophobia": Those are the sort of words six top spellers from the Eastside will be wrestling with tomorrow in the regional finals of a spelling bee that will send one winner on to national finals in Washington, D.C.

Tomorrow's competition, at Ingraham High School in Seattle, will feature 172 students from 87 Western Washington school districts spelling each other down until just one remains to go to the finals May 29-30.

Eastside competitors are Bellevue's Tyee Middle School student Thomas Yu, 14; Issaquah's Bharat Sundaram, 13, from Pine Lake Middle School and Lane Martin, 11, from Sunny Hills Elementary School; Larisa Krajewski, 10, from Norman Rockwell Elementary School in the Lake Washington School District; Sarah Struthers, 14, from Tolt Middle School in the Riverview School District, and Mina Hochberg, 12, from Snoqualmie Middle School in the Snoqualmie Valley School District.

The competition is part of the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee. The regional competition is co-sponsored by The Seattle Times.