By TONY GUERRERO
Hays Post
The 69th-annual Ellis County Spelling Bee crowned its winner Monday, who will compete in the Kansas State Spelling competition.
Sponsored by the FHSU chapter of the National Student Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the spelling contest was Monday night at the Beach-Schmidt Auditorium.
Forty-five students from third to eighth grade and from 12 different schools in Ellis County competed to determine who would represent the county at the state level.
Eighth-grader Krister Lundberg from Hays Middle School was declared the winner after correctly spelling the word "askew."
Seventh-grader Niyah Zollinger from Hays Middle School correctly spelled "ubiquity" for second place.
Lundberg moves on to the Sunflower State Spelling Bee at Kansas Wesleyan University on March 22.