Nothing ‘denigratory’ about this win

Minutes after hoisting her first-place trophy for the Chattanooga Times Free Press Regional Spelling Bee, Jasper Middle School eighth-grader Danielle Sahud breathed deeply and handed the cup of water she was holding to her mother.

“Hold this,” she told her mother, Betty-Jane Sahud.

Then she jumped up and down around the stage at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s Roland Hayes Concert Hall.

Danielle said her win was “amazing and psychotic and unbelievable.” She will compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., in May.

For complete coverage see tomorrow’s Times Free Press.