Thanks to “mettwurst” and “hobbledehoy,” Allen Press won this year’s Journal-World Corporate Spelling Bee.

After going head to head for more than 40 words without a mistake, Douglas County Bank’s team of spellers slipped up on mettwurst. They spelled it with only one “t.”

“We had it written down two ways, and we picked the wrong one,” said Sharon Stice, who was on the bank team with LeAnn Cook and Connie Kesinger.

That left the Allen Press team with the last correctly spelled word, which was hobbledehoy. The Allen Press team members were Kate Gannon, Joanne Hossack and Ed Parker.

“We practiced a couple of hours,” Gannon said. “There were some difficult words.”

For the record, mettwurst is a sausage of lean beef and salt pork seasoned, dried and smoked. Hobbledehoy is a gawky youth.

Nine teams participated in this year’s spelling bee, paying a $350 entry fee. In addition, some teams paid “word insurance” to cover them if they missed one. They paid in advance $100 extra per word to keep them in the contest should they miss one.

The spelling bee is a fund-raiser for Newspapers in Education, which provides free newspapers to area schools. This year’s event raised $3,000, Journal-World program coordinator Matt Cox said.

The other teams were Stephens Real Estate, McDonald’s, Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, the Journal-World, Sunflower Broadband, Aquila and Berry Plastics.

Allen Press employee Ed Parker, center, high-fives co-worker Mary Kuhn, right, as Kate Gannon, left, and Joanne Hossack look on. Parker, Gannon and Hossack won the Journal-World Corporate Spelling Bee on Tuesday.

The Journal-World team had the help of Mysteri Barwick, 9, and Genesis Barwick, 5, who were with their mother, Amanda Henry.

¢ 6News video: ‘Hobbledehoy’ key to bee victory¢ 2002: Aquila wins spelling bee (10-23-02)