Meet your spelling champ

Washington's word wizard is competing in the Scripps National Spelling Bee this week in Washington, D.C.

State of spelling: Declan Mallady of Snoqualmie Elementary was among the 245 spellers who took the stage in the preliminary round yesterday.

Go deeper: The 11-year-old student loves math, cellular automata and number theory. John H. Conway is his favorite mathematician.

• He also likes chess puzzles, playing piano, reading, hiking and punny jokes, according to his bee biography.

What's next: Quarterfinals and semifinals are today, and the finals are tomorrow.

• ION will air the semifinals and finals, beginning at 5pm Pacific Time each day.