Ohio County Spelling Bee Contestants Get ‘Evanescent’ Moment
Kloe Nguyen, right, an eighth grade student at Bridge Street Middle School, holds up her plaque after winning the Ohio County Schools spelling bee on Thursday. At left is Kaiden Hoffmaster, a sixth grade student at The Linsly School who won the event in 2025. He finished as runner up in the competition on Thursday. (Photo by Joselyn King)
Students participate in the Ohio County Spelling bee Thursday at Wheeling Park High School. (Photo by Joselyn King)
Students participate in the Ohio County Spelling bee Thursday at Wheeling Park High School. (Photo by Joselyn King)
Eventual champion Kloe Nguyen, right, an eighth grade student at Bridge Street Middle School competes in the Ohio County Schools spelling bee on Thursday alongside Kaiden Hoffmaster, a sixth-grade student at The Linsly School who won the event in 2025 and finshed as runner-up on Thursday.
Joselyn King
Kloe Nguyen, right, an eighth grade student at Bridge Street Middle School, holds up her plaque after winning the Ohio County Schools spelling bee on Thursday. At left is Kaiden Hoffmaster, a sixth grade student at The Linsly School who won the event in 2025. He finished as runner up in the competition on Thursday. (Photo by Joselyn King)
Students participate in the Ohio County Spelling bee Thursday at Wheeling Park High School. (Photo by Joselyn King)
Students participate in the Ohio County Spelling bee Thursday at Wheeling Park High School. (Photo by Joselyn King)
Eventual champion Kloe Nguyen, right, an eighth grade student at Bridge Street Middle School competes in the Ohio County Schools spelling bee on Thursday alongside Kaiden Hoffmaster, a sixth-grade student at The Linsly School who won the event in 2025 and finshed as runner-up on Thursday.
Joselyn KingTrending
WHEELING - For many young spelling bee students, going to the microphone to correctly spell out a specific word might be an "evanescent" moment - one defined as "soon passing out of sight, memory or existence, or quickly fading or disappearing."
Kloe Nguyen, an eighth-grade student at Bridge Street Middle School, correctly spelled "evanescent" to win the Ohio County Schools spelling bee on Thursday.
Nguyen came out on top over last year's winner, Kaiden Hoffmaster, now a sixth-grade student at The Linsly School.
Rules in the spelling bee dictate what happens when the competition comes down to two finalists. If one misses a word, the second finalist must spell the next word correctly to win the round then spell a separate final word to win the competition.
Nguyen and Hoffmaster battled for an extended time in rounds at the end, spelling and misspelling words such as "borough," "jambalaya," "nautilus," "posthumous," "epoch," "raucous," "fealty" and "jettison."
Then came the word that drew blood for Hoffmaster - "phlebotomy."
After his misspelling, Nguyen correctly diced up "julienne" before ending with "evanescent."
"I don't prepare at all, actually," she said after the contest. "I just kind of went with it."
Nguyen acknowledged there were words in the contest that did throw her, and that she hadn't heard before.
She was asked if she had felt confident she would do well.
"No, not at all," she replied.
Katrina Lewis, principal at Middle Creek Elementary School, expressed pride that both Nguyen and Hoffmaster had previously been students at her school.
"I'm extremely proud of my students," she said. "I'm proud of my current students, who made a great showing today. But our two former Road Runners did a fantastic job.
"They are wonderful kids and great students, and I'm not one bit surprised at their success," Lewis added.