GUBERNATORIAL: G-U-B-E-R-N-A-T-O-R-I-A-L. That's what's some of Guam's youngsters were up to over the weekend. Students competed for a chance to represent Guam in the national spelling bee competition in the nation's capital.

Congratulations to 12-year-old Lance Sanchez, who took home the win.

Mario Leon Guerrero, an 8th grader at Inarajan Middle School, "I joined the spelling bee at my school out of boredom and and then I ended up winning that and now I’m here." He's one of the 63 elementary and middle school students from Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands And the Federated States of Micronesia who competed in the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee Regional Competition at the Hyatt Regency Guam this past Saturday.

Prior to the regional competition, students are given a list of words that will be used. Students talked about the different ways they prepared for the bee.

Leon Guerrero, "On the spelling bee list that we have, I can recite them and didn’t get anything wrong when I was doing that. I may or may have not have started studying this morning."

Price Elementary School 5th grader Kailayah Cruz has been in the spelling bee competition twice studied for a whole month. "I was nervous and kind of excited," she said.

"I used my words and wrote them all down...maybe three times a week."

According to Rotary Club of Guam consultant Gerald Woo, a third to a quarter of the students in the spelling bee traveled to Guam from Saipan and the FSM. "The fact that they had to train and come here is a big challenge and they had to have their mind set for it," he said.

"The good thing is its spelling, not pronunciation so as long as they hear the word properly then they’re good and yes, for all of Micronesia, english is probably not the first language for most of the students. It is a common challenge but they handle it beautifully," he added.

Lance Sanchez from Science is Fun and Awesome Learning Academy Charter School took first place in the competition. The winning word was "trochee".

Officials say Sanchez is the first student from a charter school to win this title. He will compete and represent Guam in the National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC in May.