Grace in defeat

Two spellers who left us exited with exceptional grace. "Thank you. It's an honor to be here," Madelyn Almond, speller 45, said when she misspelled "filial." D3S_5417 Lauren Walker, speller 47, misspelled "idyllic." Her sentence, read by Dr. Bailly, was "Though I planned on spending my vacation skiing in an idyllic Swiss village, I ended up staying home and playing X-Box in my pajamas." "Same," she said. When she exited, she said "Thank you, it's been an honor." D3S_5435