Nevada's tiny speller from Silver Springs, 13-year-old Cheyenne Lawrence, did not advance to the finals of the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. today.
During the second round Lawrence successfully spelled one word on stage today, "rigatoni," but apparently didn't spell the required 17 correct words on a 25-word written test from the first round earlier in the week.
Lawrence, an eighth-grader at Silver Stage Middle School when she won the state competition in March, was sponsored by the Las Vegas Review Journal to attend the national competition.