Nerves got the best of Prince George student Logan O'Neill in his show business debut.
The Malaspina elemenatary school Grade 7 student represented Prince George in the Postmedia Canspell National Spelling Bee March 28 in Toronto.
The competition, which was taped for a CBC Television special - airing Sunday night - featured the 21 top spellers from across the country working towards a $7,500 education award and the coveted Canspell Cup.
Unfortunately, O'Neill lost his shot to bring home the trophy in the second round of the event. After correctly spelling "hollandaise," the 12 year old stumbled on "roodebok."
O'Neill, who said he studied two or three hours per day prior to the bee, said it wasn't necessarily more difficult words that threw him.
"I was more nervous really," he said, describing the experience of taping a television show as weird.
O'Neill won his place in the big show by beating out 33 competitors in the Prince George Citizen Regional Canspell bee at the beginning of March.
The winning competitor hailed from St. John's, Nfld. Jennifer Mong, 12, took the top prize by correctly spelling "vindaloo" after runner up Mignon Tsai, 12, misspelled "zanzibari."
Mong and Tsai, along with with third-place speller Zhongtian Wang, will head to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., in May.
Veronica Penny, of Rockland, Ont., considered a favourite to win the competition, slipped on the word "opotherapy," spelling it "apotherapy."
But despite not returning home with the outcome he was hoping for, O'Neill still enjoyed his time in Toronto, where he visited the Royal Ontario Museum and the CN Tower during his four-day stay.
"I'm going to miss it here [in Toronto] but I'm going to like going back home," he said, adding he will compete again, hopefully as a College Heights secondary school student.
"It's basically about experience. It's the first time my school's actually done it," O'Neill said. "It was fun."
The bee, for students in Grades 4 to 8, was launched in 2005 to encourage children to have a love of words and reading. The bee will be broadcast in a one-hour CBC Television special on April 1.
-- with file from Postmedia News
