Local Spelling Bee champ eliminated

John Umble of Poland, The Vindicator's 2007 Regional Spelling Bee champion, was eliminated from the National Spelling Bee competition in the preliminary rounds this morning.

John and his mother and father have been in Washington, D.C., since Sunday as part of the Bee week event.

John picked up a bonus point in the oral preliminary with the correct spelling of "fanfare" but had a more difficult time with the 25-word written preliminary round in which spellers had multiple choices for the correct spelling of each word.

He said he'd never heard of many of the words on that list. He got 13 right.

The semifinals of the competition will be aired on ESPN from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday while the finals will be live on ABC from 8 to 10 p.m. Thursday.