WASHINGTON (May 28,2009)—Aditya Chemudupaty, 12, a seventh grader at Nolan Junior High School in Pearland, was the last Texan standing Thursday in the semifinals of the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., but he was tripped up by the word “grenache,” which he spelled “granache.”

Genache is one of the most widely planted varieties of red wine grapes in the world.

He fell one word short of reaching the finals of the annual spelling bee, in which 11 students from around the U.S. will compete Thursday night in a faceoff that ABC will televise Thursday night.

He was one of three Texas spellers who were still in the competition at the start of the day Thursday, but in the fifth round, Akshay Raghuram, 10, a sixth grader at Bonham Middle School in Amarillo, misspelled kalium and Mouctika Paluri, 13, an eighth grade student at Creek Valley Middle School in: Carrollton misspelled laeotropous.

The winner of the Scripps National Spelling Bee receives more than $40,000 in cash and prizes.

A record 293 spellers competed this year.

Texas Spelling Bee Contestants

Laura Churchill
Abilene, Texas

Akshay Krishna Raghuram
Amarillo, Texas

Gabriela Isabel Diaz
Corpus Christi, Texas

Mouctika L. Paluri
Dallas, Texas

Katie Stone
El Paso, Texas

Elizabeth M. Adetiba
Fort Worth, Texas

Bianca Elaine Quintanilla
Harlingen, Texas

Aditya Chemudupaty
Houston, Texas

Auguste Julian Ramos
Laredo, Texas

Christina Benitscheck
Lubbock, Texas

Samuel Dowlen
Midland, Texas

Jonathan Robert Hohstadt
Odessa, Texas

Laryn Abigail Meadows
San Angelo, Texas

Rohit Balachandar
San Antonio, Texas

Megan J. Willmon
Victoria, Texas

Rachel Dawn Bayless
Wichita Falls, Texas