SAN DIEGO -- Gracie Ingermanson of San Diego fell one word short of going any farther than the sixth round in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee. 10News learned from a former county champ that just getting there is quite an achievement.

San Diego's Gracie Ingermanson, (pictured, left), breezed through the early rounds of the national spelling bee on ESPN.

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Morgan Diefenbach knows all too well what it feels like to participate in the spelling bee. Two years ago she was the county champion.

"Sometimes you can spell the word from the person in front of you and behind you but not your own," Diefenbach said.

That is what might have happened to Ingermanson when she got the word "maraboutism" -- she spelled it with an "e" instead of an "a."

Diefenbach knows the feeling. She bowed out in the fifth round. She said she will never forget how to spell the word she missed.

"It's engraved in my mind now," Diefenbach said.

A 13-year-old from Dallas who spelled "pococurante" successfully won the spelling bee.

Sai Gunturi (pictured, left) won the bee in the 15th round. Evelyn Blacklock of Tuxedo Park, N.Y., was the runner up. Gunturi and Blacklock battled each other for two rounds after all other contestants had been eliminated after the 11th round.

Gunturi is an eighth-grader at St. Mark's School of Texas. This was his fourth straight year in the national finals. Last year, he tied for seventh place.

A total of 251 kids began the contest Wednesday. By Thursday morning the field had been pared to 84.

Pococurante means indifferent or nonchalant, but Guntari has been anything but indifferent in his approach to competing for the spelling competition. He said he actually started studying for the competition in fourth grade. He beamed as he told reporters that "pococurante" was one of the words he studied for the contest.