What's your spelling bee experience?

Standing in front of the class, sweating profusely, trying to picture how to spell a word you've never heard of? Or asking your teacher to let you skip the competition because you know you'll be out in the first round?

Well, there are kids who don't feel anything of the sort. Trevor Leslie, 12, and Jamie Burdeski, 15, spoke with Y-Press about their experiences in spelling bees.

Last spring, Trevor, who attends Eastwood Middle School, won the Marion County North Spelling Bee. He recently won the regional spelling bee, so he will go to Washington, D.C., to compete in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee. The contest will be held May 29-30.

Jamie is a freshman at North Central High School. Last year, as an eighth-grader at Eastwood, she won the regional spelling bee and participated in the National Spelling Bee.

Here's how Trevor and Jamie describe the experience:

"There are a bunch of different rounds, and in each round each person gets a word, and they're allowed to ask questions about the word, and the last person to get out wins," Trevor said.

"You can ask for the definition," added Jamie. "You can ask (the pronouncer) to use it in a sentence. You can ask for the origin, but that's only in nationals. . . . And then if you spell the word right, you go to the end of the line. If you don't spell it right, then you're out. It's not like three times and you're out; the first time you misspell a word, you're out. You can start over again, as long as you don't change any of the letters."

Trevor said there are several levels of competition leading up to the national spelling bee. In his case, it was his school, then the North Marion County, then the regional and then the nationals.

In their respective spelling bees last year, Trevor and Jamie each missed difficult words. For example, how many people can spell -- or even define -- "tiqueur," the word Jamie missed at nationals? It means "one who suffers from tics."

"Assimilate," the word Trevor missed at the regional spelling bee last year, isn't exactly easy, either.

As the first round of last year's National Spelling Bee began, there were 248 kids competing, including 15 from Indiana. After the first round, 178 were left, including 11 Hoosiers. Jamie was among the 70 knocked out by words such as "leptocercal" and "rasgado."

But it isn't as if they didn't study.

"For regionals, they gave us the list of words in this little booklet thing, and I just looked at that and look all the words up, and my parents gave them to me," Jamie said. "And then, in the National Spelling Bee, they gave me another set of words, and then I studied that. And then you also kind of have to know the dictionary, which is kind of hard."

Surprisingly, Jamie found the school spelling bee the most challenging.

"You couldn't study for that, and they didn't use any set of words. They just picked out words randomly. When I went to nationals, I had to study really hard words in the study booklet that they give you, and I also had to try to study the dictionary."

Knowing the words isn't enough to guarantee victory. Another factor is how contestants handle the spotlight, which can affect people in different ways.

"I feel really nervous before a spelling bee," Trevor admitted.

Jamie, however, isn't fazed at all. "I don't get nervous. . . . I don't get stage fright or anything," she said.

After the spellers won their contests, they celebrated.

"Usually we go out to eat or have a pizza," said Trevor.

Jamie didn't really celebrate after the school bee because she knew it was going to get a lot harder after that.

"But I was all happy, and I smiled a lot. After I won the regionals and I was going to nationals, I was like really happy, and I started jumping up and down," she said.

These spellers think there are lots of reasons to participate in the challenge.

"You learn how to spell words, and you learn definitions of words," said Trevor.

There are other benefits, too.

"You get a pretty good vocabulary from studying, and so that helps when you are writing 'cause you know more words," said Jamie, who added, "I got $50, and I can go to a Sugar Ray concert now."

So what's in store for them as far as spelling bees go? Trevor has a few more years to compete, but Jamie can't -- participants can't be past eighth grade.

"I think that's a good rule because already there's not a very good chance that a fourth-grader is going to win the National Spelling Bee because there are eighth-graders competing," Trevor said. "If there were high school students competing, then there would be no way that I would've won that spelling bee."

"I don't like that rule," Jamie said. "There's not a high school national spelling bee either. That would make it fair."

Trevor offered some advice to those who may compete in a spelling bee:

"Study hard, and don't look at the advanced words until you go to nationals."

Jamie had another hint: "Learn Greek and Latin."

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Dana Campbell, 15.

REPORTERS: Stephanie Boxell, 13; Christine Beyer, 12; Tory Campbell, 12; Andrea Phillips, 13.