The bee that would not end
The Jackson County, Missouri spelling bee began as a routine qualifier for the Scripps National Spelling Bee. NPR reported that on 22 February the field narrowed to two children and then stopped narrowing. Kush Sharma, 13, a seventh-grader at Frontier School of Innovation in Kansas City, and Sophia Hoffman, 11, a fifth-grader, spelled at each other for 66 rounds and more than five hours.
The organisers ran out of material. The head judge, Kate Stover, described the scramble afterwards: 'It took us an hour to find more words. And we were looking for words that were not completely archaic and uncommon.' With no usable list left, the bee was suspended rather than decided, and the two spellers were sent home to wait.
The spell-off, two weeks later
The contest resumed on 8 March before what NPR described as an overflow crowd. It took nearly 30 further rounds. Hoffman misspelled 'stifling'. Sharma then spelled 'definition' correctly and the bee, after roughly 95 rounds spread across two dates, was finally over.
The prize was a place at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington. The rest of the reward was attention: the research record for this page notes that both spellers appeared on CNN and Good Morning America, and the KCUR report on the episode is headlined on exactly that point, that a marathon spelling bee made celebrities out of two Kansas City-area children.
What Kush Sharma said about it
The line that survives from the 2014 bee is Sharma's, and it is notable for refusing the framing everyone else was using. 'I don't think we see it as I beat her or she beats me,' he told NPR. 'I think it's like the word beat me.'
It is an unusually precise description of what a spelling bee actually is. The two children were not opponents in any ordinary sense; they were both running at the same wall, and the wall eventually fell on one of them. The judges' problem that February was that the wall had run out.
How rare a 66-round bee is
Bees are designed to end. Word lists are graded so that a field of dozens is cut to one inside a couple of hours, and the national competition has repeatedly rewritten its rules to prevent ties. A county bee exhausting its entire list against two children, then adjourning for two weeks, is the failure mode that the design is meant to make impossible.
That is why the Jackson County bee travelled. It was not a story about a prodigy beating a field; it was a story about two eleven- and thirteen-year-olds beating the format itself. NPR's own headline treated it as an event that had to be reported when it finally ended, weeks after it began.
What is documented and what is not
Documented by NPR and KCUR: his age of 13, his grade, his school, the 66 rounds on 22 February, the suspension, the resumption on 8 March, the roughly 30 further rounds, Hoffman's miss on 'stifling', his winning word 'definition', his advance to the national bee, and the judge's account of running out of words.
Not documented here: how he fared in Washington afterwards, his family, his date of birth, any later competition, and anything about where he is today. No IQ figure appears in this record. A spelling bee measures preparation and nerve on a given afternoon, and nothing in these sources claims more than that.
Watch: Kush Sharma on camera
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sophia Hoffman | United States | The 2014 Jackson County marathon spelling bee | Age 9 |
| Naysa Modi | United States | Runner-up at the 2018 Scripps National Spelling Bee | Age 9 |
| Akshay Buddiga | United States | Fainting and recovering at the 2004 National Spelling Bee | Age 11 |
| Kush Sharma | United States | Winning the 2014 Jackson County marathon spelling bee | Age 13 |
| Finola Hackett | Canada | Runner-up at the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee | Age 14 |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Won the 2014 Jackson County spelling bee on 'definition' (NPR, 8 March 2014)
- The bee ran 66 rounds on 22 February and was suspended when the word list ran out
- Was 13 and a seventh-grader at Frontier School of Innovation
- Advanced to the Scripps National Spelling Bee
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- How he placed at the national bee is not recorded in these sources
- No date of birth is published in the sources used here
- Nothing in this record documents his life after 2014
Questions people ask about Kush Sharma
How old is Kush Sharma?
NPR reported he was 13 and a seventh-grader in 2014, which places his birth year around 2001. No date of birth appears in these sources.
What did Kush Sharma do?
He won the 2014 Jackson County, Missouri spelling bee after a 66-round session that had to be suspended because the organisers ran out of words, and nearly 30 further rounds two weeks later.
What was the winning word?
'definition'. His opponent Sophia Hoffman had gone out on 'stifling'.
Why was the spelling bee suspended?
The judges had exhausted the word list. Head judge Kate Stover said it took an hour to find more words that were not completely archaic and uncommon.
Who did Kush Sharma compete against?
Sophia Hoffman, an 11-year-old fifth-grader from the Lee's Summit area. The two of them were the last spellers standing on both dates.
Where is Kush Sharma now?
The sources used here stop in 2014. No later information about him appears in this record, and this page does not invent one.
Is Kush Sharma on Wikipedia?
No standalone English Wikipedia article for him is recorded here.
What is Kush Sharma's IQ?
No IQ figure appears in any source used for this page. Spelling bees do not test or publish IQ.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Kush’s story?
How many rounds did the 2014 Jackson County bee run on its first date?
Which word did Kush Sharma win on?
Why was the bee suspended?
Sources
- Weeks Later, Epic Spelling Bee Ends In Missouri — NPR, 2014-03-08
- Marathon spelling bee makes celebrities out of Kansas City-area spellers — KCUR
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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