Photo by Craig Hudson/Scripps National Spelling Bee. Marshall eighth grader Charles Mueller-Thompson stands up on stage during the preliminary round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Tuesday in Maryland at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center.

National Harbor, Md. – Marshall eighth grader Charles Mueller-Thompson took stage today at the 100th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee in Maryland, representing southwest Minnesota among 243 spellers from across the country.

“I was pretty nervous,” Mueller-Thompson told the Independent. “Some of the vocab was trickier than I was thinking it was going to be, but then the words weren’t hard like I thought.”

Mueller-Thompson earned a spot in the national competition after wining first place at the Southwest West Central Service Cooperative Regional Spelling Bee in Redwood Falls on Feb. 18, his second time participating at regionals.

Representing his Marshall Cross Country shirt on the big stage, Mueller-Thompson successfully passed the first two rounds of the preliminaries.

Out of the 243 spellers, 42 were eliminated in the first round, and 18 were in the second.

Mueller-Thompson had to spell “in silico” in round one, and proceeded to give the correct definition of “rubric” in the second round, focused on vocabulary.

“The first two rounds were pretty easy. They weren’t necessarily hard words,” Mueller-Thompson said. “But, it was pretty intense because they had to do a lot of commercial breaks because it was being streamed.”

The preliminaries consist of three rounds, with participants passing all three advancing to the competition quarterfinals. Only results from the first two were rounds were scored at the time of publication, with Mueller-Thompson waiting for the final preliminary results.

To earn a spot in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, participants must win a regional spelling bee and be in eighth grade or below, and younger than 15 years old.

The competition this year is being held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, and has participants from all 50 states. There also are 13 competitors from varying countries, according to Scripps, including Canada, Germany, Nigeria, Guam and more.

Mueller-Thompson said he arrived in Maryland on Sunday with his parents, and got to go on a Memorial Day picnic at the ballpark with other spellers.

“It’s been super fun,” Mueller-Thompson said.

Leading up to the competition, and how he also prepared for the regional spelling bee, Mueller-Thompson said he studies with the Word Club App, which is from Scripps, and studies a couple hours every day.

Mueller-Thompson told the Independent in February after the regional bee that he first got into competitive spelling through school spelling bees.

The quarterfinals will take place today from 7 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. and can be streamed on spellingbee.com or Bounce XL. The semifinals will take place later today, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and can be streamed on spellingbee.com or Ion.

The finals are slated for Thursday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and can be streamed on spellingbee.com or Ion.