A mid-Hudson Valley student ended her run in the 97th Scripps National Spelling Bee May 27.
Cora Massaro was “just two points off from qualifying” during the third round of the preliminaries that night, her mother, Elodie Massaro, said in an email statement.
Cora is an eighth grader from C.J. Hooker Middle School in Goshen. She won a regional competition, hosted by Orange-Ulster BOCES, to earn her spot on the national stage.
Cora successfully spelled “moraine,” an accumulation of earth and stones carried and finally deposited by a glacier, according to Merriam-Webster, in the first round of the preliminaries May 27.
In the second round, she correctly said a solstice occurs twice a year.
The third round of preliminaries, a test for spellers who’ve advanced from the first two rounds of the preliminaries, was held later that evening.
“Out of 11 million students who participated in school-level spelling bees around the world, only 243 were invited to the national stage — and just 183 advanced to Round 3,” Elodie Massaro said May 28. “Cora was among them. That, in itself, is something to be proud of.”
The finals will be held from 8-10 p.m. May 29.
(This story has been updated to add new information.)
This article originally appeared on Poughkeepsie Journal: Scripps Spelling Bee: How Goshen 8th grader Cora Massaro fared in preliminaries
Reporting by Nickie Hayes, Poughkeepsie Journal / Poughkeepsie Journal
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