So, after finishing up some research at the MN History Center, I discovered that the 2007 Twin Cities Metro Spelling Bee (apparently some sort of division of the National Spelling Bee) was going on in the auditorium. I swung in to take a look and ended up staying through the end. When I got there in Round 4 or 5, a good 50% of the 28 contenders had already been eliminated and each subsequent round took one or more spellers down. Once we hit the final three (Megan Alsleben, Jonathan Liu, and Lucy Zhang), things slowed down as these three spelled word after increasingly-obscure word.
Finally, Alsleben went down to garnishee in round 16. Liu & Zhang battled it out for five more rounds and I have to say that Zhang got the short end of the spelling stick, getting words like jussive and dermonecrotic, while Liu got much more familiar words like facsimile and bombardier (ok, he also got fistiana, but overall, he got more common words). The awesome part was that she got them right and just kept on going, albeit with a somewhat surprised look on her face.
However, in the end, it was epicurean that got Zhang. Liu spelled bouffant correctly and finished her off and is now going to the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
As for me, I learned several new words. Also, I learned that the correct English pronunciations of sashimi and mikado make use of the schwa. I find this very weird.
So, congratulations to Jonathan Liu! And to Lucy Zhang: you held out longer than anyone else in the room probably could have, and that's pretty darned impressive.