NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — It was smooth sailing through round three of the spelling bee for Ben Franklin 8th grader Tobi Shorunke of Fargo. Shorunke easily spelled the word “deliverable” in round 3 and moved on successfully to the 4th round. He is the only speller from North Dakota to make this year’s spelling bee, and was the state spelling bee champion.
However Shorunke was not able to advance to the final round because he did not score the 28 points needed on the preliminary test to move on to the finals. Of the 519 spellers in rounds one and two, only 41 made the final cut.
The Preliminaries consisted of the Preliminaries Test and two rounds of onstage oral spelling. The spelling bee finals will be on ESPN on Thursday with the champion decided by the evening.
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