Washington. D.C. (KROC-AM News) - Southeastern Minnesota’s representative in the Scripp’s National Spelling Bee failed to make the cut in Wednesday’s preliminary competition.

Benjamin Lee is an eighth grader at the Byron Middle School and failed to advance to Thursday’s finals in Washington D.C. even though he correctly spelled both of his words in the second and third preliminary rounds. The 14-year-old was asked to spell “astrobleme” and “simultaneity” during his appearances before the microphone and cameras.

The ranking of the 171 participants is also based on the results of a preliminary test that was taken on Tuesday and Benjamin was not included on the list of 45 finalists that was released by the spelling bee’s organizers late Wednesday afternoon.

One of the five Minnesota spellers in the contest did make the finals. 14-year-old Maxwell Meyer is an eighth-grader at Minnetonka Middle School East.

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