The finalists are...

There will be 40 spellers moving on to the Finals of the Bee, which start tomorrow morning.

D4N_3359

They are: Speller 9, Melodie Loya, a New York sixth grader

Speller 25, Sohum Sukhatankar, a Texas fifth grader

Speller 27, Rohan Sachdev, a North Carolina eighth grader

Speller 36, Erin Howard, an Alabama sixth grader

Speller 37, Varad Mulay, a Michigan eighth grader

Speller 43, Helena Thompson, a North Carolina seventh grader

Speller 65, Samhita Kumar, a California sixth grader

Speller 75, Mira Dedhia, an Illinois eighth grader 

Speller 99, Brendan Pawlicki, a Michigan fifth grader

Speller 109, Paul Hamrick, a California seventh grader

Speller 114, Shrindhi Gopal, a California eighth grader

Speller 128, Owen Kovalik, an Ohio eighth grader

Speller 136, Grant Taylor, a Texas eighth grader

Speller 143, Tejas Muthusamy, a Virginia eighth grader

Speller 163, Nikhil Lahiri, a New York eighth grader

Speller 167, Sreeniketh Vogoti, a Florida eighth grader

Speller 176, Maggie Sheridan, an Ohio seventh grader

Speller 180, Daniel Chen, a California eighth grader

Speller 187, Saketh Sundar, a Maryland sixth grader

Speller 189, Rutvik Gandhasri, a California eighth grader

Speller 191, Alice Liu, a Missouri fifth grader

Speller 200, Raksheet Kota, a Texas eighth grader

Speller 205, Siyona Mishra, a Florida eighth grader

Speller 207, Tara Singh, a Kentucky seventh grader

Speller 210, Naysa Modi, a Louisiana sixth grader

Speller 214, Ashrita Gandhari, a Massachusetts fourth grader

Speller 227, Enya Hubers, an Ontario sixth grader

Speller 235, Rohan Rajeev, an Oklahoma eighth grader

Speller 245, Jashun Paluru, an Indiana seventh grader

Speller 254, Shourav Dasari, a Texas eighth grader

Speller 259, Alex Iyer, a Texas eighth grader

Speller 264, Ananya Vinay, a California sixth grader

Speller 265, Catherine Chung, a South Korea seventh grader

Speller 276, Akshra Paimagam, a North Carolina eighth grader

Speller 278, Shruthika Padhy, a New Jersey sixth grader

Speller 280, Srikar Chamarthi, a Texas seventh grader

Speller 281, Thomas York, a Minnesota eighth grader

Speller 287, Nicholas Ivan, an Indiana eighth grader

Speller 288, Aisha Randhawa, a California sixth grader

Speller 291, Marlene Schaff, an Illinois eighth grader