Eighty-five of the state’s best spellers in third through eighth grades will be in Hays Saturday for the 2013 Sunflower Spelling Bee.

The Sunflower region includes 75 western Kansas counties.  The winner advances to the National Spelling Bee in Washington the last week of May.

The spelling bee starts at 9a.m. at Fort Hays State University’s Beach/Schmidt Performing Arts Center in Sheridan Hall.

The 85 competitors are their school’s winners of their county bee.  The Ellis County representative is Sally Lushbough, a Hays Middle School eighth-grader.

This is the first time Hays has hosted the Sunflower Bee, which was in Great Bend the past five years.

The Sunflower Bee is co-sponsored by The Hays Daily News, AT&T and Sunflower Electric.