Northeast Ohio students compete at 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee

It's time for kids to shine and for millions of adults to feel intellectually inadequate.

Driving the news: The Scripps National Spelling Bee quarterfinals take place Wednesday.

• More than 200 contestants are competing this week in National Harbor, Maryland.

State of p-l-a-y: Spellers who made it through Tuesday's preliminaries will compete in a live broadcast competition over the next two days.

• Last year the broadcast drew over 7.5 million viewers, the largest television audience since 2015.

Zoom in: Northeast Ohio has two of Ohio's 15 smarties still in competition. We started with seven.

How to watch: The semifinals and finals will air 8-10pm Wednesday, and 8-10pm Thursday on Ion Television.

Meet our spellers still competing:

• Speller 160: Shaylynn Dennis, 14, attends Beaver Local Middle School in Lisbon. She plays the flute and plans to join the high school marching band next year. Dennis enjoys memorizing things, including the Constitution of the United States and 160 of the numbers in pi.
• Speller 165: Joey Constantine, 13, attends Lakeview Middle School in Cortland and is a sports, music and trivia enthusiast. He finished tied for 32nd in the 2022 National Spelling Bee and enjoys playing percussion in his school's band.