Here's how Chicago-area participants are doing in Scripps National Spelling Bee

Results so far: Two spellers from Illinois lost in Round 1, and one more was eliminated in Round 2 on Tuesday.

• The misspelled words and incorrect answers: uraeus, gelilah, and "What is an encomium?"
• As of 9am CT Wednesday, three Illinois participants remained in the competition: Whitford-Rodríguez, Kavin Suriya Prakash from Edwards, and Yahya Mohammed from Geneva.

How it works: Spellers have 90 seconds to correctly spell a word once it has been pronounced and can ask the judges for a definition, part of speech, alternate pronunciations and use the word in a sentence.

Fun fact: The longest one-day competition was in 1957 and lasted nearly 10 hours.

• Dana Bennett, 13, from Denver, and Sandra Owen, 14, from Navarre, Ohio, were declared co-champions after the judges completed the word list.
• Both misspelled the final word: schappe.

Flashback: The Scripps National Spelling Bee started in 1925 when nine spellers competed in Washington, D.C. The winner was 11-year-old Frank Neuhauser from Louisville.

• The last winner from Chicago was Balu Natarajan in 1985 with the word milieu.

What's next: There are at least two more rounds Wednesday before the semi-finals at 7pm CT on ION. The finals are at 7pm CT Thursday on ION.

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