Thirteen-year-old Emily Aldrin of Palo Cedro was eliminated from the semifinals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. She correctly spelled and defined three words but only 49 finalists were selected out of the 250 children in the bee. She made the trip to Washington, D.C., after successfully spelling “fumigation.”
Vanya Shivashankar,13, from Kansas and Gokul Venkatachalam,14, from Missouri finished the competition as co-champions after exhausting the 25 words reserved for the final three spellers without stumbling. Before last year, there hadn't been a tie since 1962.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.