One Exceptional (and Adorable) Speller: 5 Brilliant Stories This Week

Edith Fuller, 5, is the youngest ever to head to National Spelling Bee
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 12, 2017 5:21 AM CDT
One Exceptional (and Adorable) Speller: 5 Brilliant Stories This Week
In this March 4, 2017, photo, Edith Fuller, 5, spells a word during the 2017 Scripps Green Country Regional Spelling Bee in Tulsa, Okla.   (James Gibbard/Tulsa World via AP)

A heroic soccer player and an 8-year-old boy both make this week's list of inspiring stories:

  • Soccer Player Helps Save a Life—Again: At a soccer game in Prague recently, one of the goalies had a violent head-on collision with a teammate and fell to the ground in a heap. Opposing player Francis Kone of Togo didn't miss a beat. The goalie had swallowed his tongue, and Kone knew time was short. He succeeded in helping the goalie to breathe again, even getting bit in the process. There's an even more amazing reason Kone was so matter-of-fact in the tense situation.
  • Rapper Slams Governor, Gives $1M to Chicago Schools: Chance the Rapper, who took home two Grammys last month, is one of the country's hottest artists—but he's using his star power to get involved in what the Atlantic calls a "decidedly unglamorous municipal struggle."

  • Girl Is Youngest Ever to Head to National Spelling Bee: Plenty of adults would struggle to spell "colloquial," "odori" and "sevruga." Five-year-old Edith Fuller made it look like a cakewalk. An early crowd favorite, Edith beat out about 50 competitors ages 5 to 14 at the Green Country Regional Spelling Bee in Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday, making her the youngest person ever to qualify for the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Her parents discovered her spelling talent when she spelled a word she'd never actually been taught.
  • It Looked Like a Trash Bag, but Was More Like a Miracle: She is old, blind, and was lost for a week in the Santa Cruz Mountains, but the Labrador retriever Sage has been found and reunited with her family. Sage, 12, who lost her sight to glaucoma, was mistakenly left outside on the night of Feb. 24 and wandered into woods frequented by mountain lions. Owner Beth Cole says family and friends searched the rough terrain day and night for a week; not even a professional dog tracker could find her. On the eighth day, hopelessness was setting in. Then her Boulder Creek, Calif., neighbor Dan Estrada went on a walk with a friend and saw what looked to be a trash bag in a stream.
  • After Car Falls on Dad, 8-Year-Old Son Rescues Him: "Jack it up quick" are the last words Stephen Parker recalls yelling before passing out, the weight of his Toyota Prius slowly crushing him. The only one around to hear him was his 8-year-old son, JT. "I thought, 'This is it. There's no way [JT] can jack up this car,'" Parker says. But JT, weighing just 50 pounds, jumped into action—literally.
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