Seven New Jersey students competed in the 89th annual spelling bee.
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- All seven New Jersey entrants in the 89th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee spelled their first-round words correctly Wednesday and advanced to the afternoon session.
Henry A. Banta of Somerset, 13, an eighth grader at Franklin Middle School, began the second session by correctly spelling patois, which is the dialect of the people of a region. The other students also got their words right.
They'll all get another opportunity on stage later Wednesday, where a misspelled word will trigger a bell and a disqualification. If they spell that word correctly, then they will be eligible to return Thursday, depending on the scores of their written test they took Tuesday.
N.J. students seek V-I-C-T-O-R-Y
Up to 50 students will return to the stage Thursday, with the initial rounds televised on ESPN2 and the finals broadcast on ESPN that evening.
The students representing New Jersey all are making their first appearance at the bee. Besides Banta, they are:
-- Nabil Ettayebi of Belleville, 13, an eighth grader at Miftaahul Uloom Academy,who won the 57th annual Jersey Journal-Hudson County Spelling Bee.
-- Vivek S. Kolli of Mays Landing, 14, an eighth grader at William Davies Middle School.
-- Rimas Chacar-Palubinskas of Ho-Ho-Kus, 13, an eighth grader at Ho-Ho-Kus Public School.
-- Julian J. Connaughton of Shohola, Pa., 13, a seventh grader at Delaware Valley Middle School sponsored by the Tri-State Spelling Bee Committee in Montague.
-- Justin Kyle Malabanan of Bayville, 14, an eighth grader at Central Regional Middle School.
-- Shruthika Padhy of Cherry Hill, 10, a fifth grader at Bret Harte Elementary School.
Katharine Close of Spring Lake, a 13-year-old, was the last New Jersey student to win the spelling bee. She came in first in 2006 after correctly spelling ursprache, a language reconstructed from languages that came later.
Last year, Katharine S. Wang of Morristown reached the semifinals before misspelling cinqueciento, a term referring to the 16th century Italian Renaissance. It was her fourth trip to the spelling bee.
Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook