SPELLING BEE: Sriram Hathwar, age 8, goes down on Day 1, but others advance

Eight-year-old Sriram Hathwar, the youngest person to ever compete in the National Spelling Bee, correctly spelled 'elicitation' in Round 2 but didn't advance. From ABC News, "Youngest Speller in History Hits Bee Stage":

"Elicitation," said Sriram, making sure to pronounce the word correctly. "E-l-i-c-i-t-a-t-i-o-n."

The crowd cheered perhaps just a touch louder for the pint-size speller, and he slinked back to his seat on stage, disappearing behind the taller contestants sitting in front of him.

Despite his correct spelling of a word trickier than many of the others given during the preliminary round of the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee -- his peers were asked words such as "rigatoni" and "macaroon" -- Sriram was barred from moving on to the bee's quarterfinals because of his score on a written spelling test administered earlier this week.

The Spelling Bee ends Friday. Here are the desi kids who made it to the semifinals:

• Easun Arunachalam
• Arushi Jauhari
• Shiva Kangeyan
• Vaibhav Vavilala
• Sameer Mishra
• Kavya Shivashankar
• Akshat Shekhar
• Sidharth Chand
• Jahnavi Iyer

Go, team!