The regional spelling bee champion correctly spelled his words in the second and third rounds, receiving the maximum points, but it wasn't enough to propel him into the semifinals of the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Fort Frye eighth-grader Carter Lang, 14, correctly spelled "egregious" in the second round and "kobold" in the third round during competition on Wednesday.
"I'm glad I got the opportunity to come here," Lang said.
Article Photos
Lang
Egregious means "remarkable" or "outstanding for undesirable qualities" while a kobold is "a helpful or mischievous sprite in households" or "a gnome in mines and other underground places."
On the written test administered on Tuesday, where 25 words were randomly selected from a group of 50, Lang scored eight additional points. Combined with the six points from rounds two and three he had a total of 14 points out of a possible 31.
"He gave it his all, what time he had considering all the other things he had to do," said Stephanie Lang, Carter's mother. "I am very pleased with his effort."
Fact Box
How to watch
Semifinals will take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. today and will be broadcast on ESPN2.
Championship finals will take place from 8:30 to 10 p.m. tonight and will be broadcast on ESPN.
Full results will be available at www.spellingbee.com or through Twitter at Twitter.com/scrippsbee
Source: Scripps National Spelling Bee
Despite all his success, Lang was not quite one of the 50 semifinalists set to compete today for the title.
To be a semifinalist, spellers had to have a combined score of at least 23 of the possible 31 points.
"It was an experience," Lang said. "It was pretty interesting. I was a little over halfway through the thing. It took a while to get to me, and it took a while after me."
Lang qualified to compete in the national spelling bee, which took place in the Maryland Ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Md., just outside Washington D.C., by winning The Marietta Times Regional Spelling Bee in March.
Lang is the second straight winner of the regional spelling bee to spell words correctly in the second and third rounds of competition, with last year's regional winner also failing to advance to the semifinals. Prior to that, there had not been a local speller correctly spell both their words on stage dating back to 2000, with results from 2005 not available.
There were 278 spellers from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and foreign countries including Canada, China, Ghana, Japan and New Zealand.
"It was interesting. There was a 6-year-old, 8-year-olds," Lang said. "There's people from California, all over. Guam, just different countries. Puerto Rico, New Zealand, it's just amazing."
Prior to competing in the spelling bee, Lang went around and collected autographs from other spellers, and penned his John Hancock on a few ledgers as well.
"That was pretty fun," Lang said.
The semifinals of the national spelling bee take place today from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and will be broadcast on ESPN2. The finals of the spelling bee will take place from 8:30 to 10 p.m. this evening on ESPN.
