"Vaseline, V-A-S-E-L-I-N-E. Vaseline." "That is correct"
After battling it out with 26 other finalists, Luna Gasevic, a seventh grader from Cass County, won her second North Dakota State Spelling Bee. With words from geriatric to galoshes, diatom to drupiferous, contestants clashed in over 15 rounds of spelling.
Luna says she started spelling competitively in elementary school and the 2022 season led her to take 89th place in the National Scripps Spelling Bee. Luna says there was one word in the North Dakota Bee that had her worried.
"Heliotrope, because theres another word on the list that is heleoplankton, but its spelled H-E-L-E-O instead of H-E-L-I-O. "
Luna now gets to go to Washington D.C. for her second National Bee.