He got “bockwurst” right during the preliminaries, but after a written test filled with words like “eidetic”, “cacoethes”, and “nonpareil”, Thunder Bay's Logan Turner didn't make it to the finals in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

"'Appaloosa' stumped me," the 11-year-old Agnew H. Johnston Public School student said Thursday from Washington. "I spelled it A-P-P-A-L-U-S-A. Another word I thought I had right was cygnet. I spelled it S-I-G-N-E-T-T-E."

The Washington trip has been quite the learning experience for the expert speller, who also competed in the national CanSpell bee held in Ottawa in April.

"Now I know most of the spelling rules, like language of origin," Logan explained. "That's actually what helped me in round two. I remembered the German rule that at the end of the word or a syllable, the k-sound is spelled 'C-K.' That's how I got bockwurst."

He's not sure if he will try again next year, but if he does, he said all the studying and prep work he did this year should give him an advantage. Plus, he added that he would study an even harder word list.

But it's not all about the difficult words. The trip to Washington with the other CanSpell finalists has been a thrill for Logan, who has spent the week touring all the famous landmarks like the White House, the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol Building.
"We're going to the spy museum. (Today) is the semifinals and the finals of the spelling bee, but we‘re going Saturday," he added excitedly.

It's also been a way to meet fellow ace spellers from across Canada and the United States. Each contestant is given a book that they're encouraged to collect everyone‘s signatures in, said Logan.

"That's a good way to meet people, too," he said. "I got quite a few signatures but it's going to be hard to get all 288 people."

Despite all the excitement of travel and high-level competition, Logan is just as happy to be coming home Sunday.

"I‘m looking forward to doing stuff in Washington, but I‘m also looking forward to coming back and seeing my friends and family and not having to worry about studying for a while," he laughed.