Amarillo student Jeff Zheng narrowly missed the finalist list for the Scripps Spelling Bee, according to the list that was released last night.
Zheng, a student at Ascension Academy, correctly spelled his way through two rounds of competition and tied for 41st place, but did not meet the required threshold to get into the final round of competition. In the end, Scripps announced that 15 finalists will continue on to the final round of competition.
While Zheng will not be entering the final round of competition, Texas boasts a number of finalists in the 15 candidate pool. Raksheet Kota and Shourav Dasari, both Houston natives will continue on to the finals along with Alex Iyer from San Antonio.
While the finals already began today, the continuing finals will continue this evening in National Harbor, Maryland.
The finals can be seen on ESPN 2.
Photo by Scripps Spelling Bee