CNN) — Can you say extraordinary?
Six-year-old Lori Anne Madison can probably spell it – and it’s one of the best words to describe her.
The young girl from Prince William County, Virginia, has just become the youngest speller eligible to participate in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, according to the event’s record books, which date to 1993. Mike Hickerson, the bee’s communications manager, said there have been four spellers since 1993 who were 8 years old.
Lori Anne, who is home-schooled, beat out 21 other kids in the county to win the bee, which enters her into the national bee.
The word that thrust her into the spotlight? “Vaquero,” the Spanish translation of “cowboy,” which is often used in Spanish-speaking parts of the South such as Texas, according to InsideNova.
The paper reported that after one of the last spellers missed her word, Lori Anne stepped up to the microphone, was given her word and without hesitation rattled off the spelling correctly.
Her parents said it was a word she had tripped her up before.
“We practiced that word several times because she kept getting it wrong,” mom Sorina Vlaicu Madison told InsideNova. “We really insisted on that word, so I knew for sure she would nail it.”
And nail it she did.
“It was better this time. It felt better,” the 6-year-old told the newspaper as she held her trophy.
“Look, this trophy is different from last year’s,” Lori Anne said.
That’s right, this isn’t the little girl’s first time at the spelling bee. Last year, she made it into the local top five. This year, she was determined to best herself.
Now, Lori Anne will have to dust off her flashcards and perhaps pop in a DVD of documentary “Spellbound,” which looks at the phenomenon behind the famous spelling bee, in order to check out what the national spotlight would be like. Lori Anne will surely have the world watching her in May if she makes it through the rounds to ESPN’s prime-time viewing of the Scripps Bee.
It’s a safe bet this girl is destined to be n-o-n-p-a-r-e-i-l.
“Could I get the definition, please?” you ask.
adjective: having no equal; peerless.
noun: a person or thing having no equal; in printing a “6-point type.”
But Lori Anne probably already knows that.
Mallory Simon, CNN
