Larry Gibbs, Knox Educational Service Center
MOUNT VERNON – It took 26 rounds and nearly two hours before Vincent Jiang, a Mount Vernon Middle School eighth-grader, emerged as the champion of the 2026 Knox County Spelling Bee Wednesday evening.
Victory did not come easily for Jiang, who battled neck-and-neck with Jace Daugherty, a seventh-grader at East Knox Junior High, for the last nine rounds of the bee.
Jiang said afterward that he had wanted to be better prepared.
“I studied as much as I could but not as much as I had wanted to,” he said.
Jiang, whose favorite subject is Spanish, is a member of the school orchestra and plays tennis.
Was he nervous on the stage of the Mount Vernon High School theater Wednesday night?
“Yes,” Jiang said without hesitation.
Daugherty earned the runner-up trophy in a field of 19 spellers in grades 5 through 8 from Centerburg, Danville, East Knox, Fredericktown and Mount Vernon.
From the 18th through the 26th rounds Daugherty kept pace with Jiang, at one point correctly spelling “extremophile “ (a microorganism).
In what proved to be the final round, Daughterty stumbled on “emphatically,” when he left out an l. Jiang then correctly spelled “prognosticate” before securing the championship by spelling “affiliation.”
As the audience applauded, Daugherty crossed the stage to shake hands with Jiang.
Jiang’s win qualifies him to take the online qualifying test for the Ohio Region 2 Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee competition in March. Regional winners from all states will move on to the national bee in Washington, D.C., in May.
The 19 spellers who competed Wednesday night won grade-level bees at their respective schools.
Knox County Commissioners Drenda Keesee and Barry Lester served as judges. Knox Pages staff reporter Cheryl Splain also served as a judge, subbing for Commissioner Bill Pursel who could not attend.
Taylor Gingery, gifted consultant at the Knox County Educational Service Center, was the pronouncer. The ESC facilitates the bee.
Gingery thanked the Mount Vernon Rotary Foundation “for their generous contribution in providing gift certificates and T-shirts for the contestants and trophies for the winner and runner-up.”
She also recognized Paragraphs Bookstore for providing discounted gift certificates.
Other participants in the county bee included:
Centerburg: Avaya Hibbits, Ethan Arms, Willow Barnard and Lucas Roth.
Danville: Camren Clark, Glen Geog, Kellyn Addair and Charlotte Meyers.
East Knox: Jackson Daugherty, Marley Moore and Callie May.
Fredericktown: Parker Fearn, Cross Adkins, Sophia Workman and Carsyn Adkins.
Mount Vernon: Edward Ernest and Xzyaeren Gabriel Cabarcas.