Schuylkill County’s 2025 spelling champion, Rowena Cresswell-Blickley, has been eliminated in the third round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Cresswell-Blickley, a Blue Mountain seventh grader, advanced beyond the first two rounds (an initial spelling round and a vocabulary round) but did not make it beyond the written test elimination.
She finished tied for 100th place overall out of 243 spellers competing.
In the first round on Tuesday, Cresswell-Blickley correctly spelled effleurage, a massaging motion, to advance to the vocabulary round. In Round 2, she correctly answered her question to advance to the written test.
Forty-two competitors were eliminated after the first round and another 18 were taken out after Round 2. The written test took out 84 spellers, leaving just 99 to compete in the final rounds, which begin on Wednesday morning.
Cresswell-Blickley is a seventh grader at Blue Mountain Middle School, so she’ll have another chance at the local title next year. Back in March, she correctly spelled orthochromatic to capture the Schuylkill County title.
Last week, she was recognized for her achievement by Blue Mountain’s school board before she embarked on a trip to Washington, DC, to compete in the National Spelling Bee.
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