Locals showed off their spelling abilities over the weekend as the 3rd Annual Grate Groan-Up Spelling Bee at the Wales Theatre in High River Saturday.

Through pledges and team fundraising the event is trying to raise $25,000 for the Literacy For Life Foundation.

Foundation Board Chair Doug Howard says they're close to raising their goal.

"We haven't got a final count yet because the pledges are open until the end of October," he says. "But we certainly expect to exceed our target this year when we include the bee, the pledges, the incidental donations at the bee itself and our raffle."

Howard says 12 teams left it all out on the spelling floor and the crowd watching the bee were floored by the event's back and forth exchanges.

"Everybody had a great time, good spirited competition between the teams, our MC was fantastic, our honourary chair gave us some us inspiring words at the beginning of the bee and great participation from the audience, and all of the teams and officials."

Howard says the event had its best showing yet in three years of the foundation putting on the bee.

"There's some banter that's going on throughout the bee, so the teams are challenged and it's just a lot of fun and the audience laughs and cheers, it's a very interesting event," he says.

The winning team was the 'K' Hive team from High River and the runners-up were the 'Big Rockies' from Okotoks.

The team that raised the most money prior to the bee were the 'Wildroses' and best costume went to 'Team Optimum'.