East Setauket teen out of national spelling bee prelims

An East Setauket middle schooler making his second trip to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., was knocked out in the preliminaries of the contest on Wednesday.

Ryan Himmelsbach, 14, had survived Round 2 on Tuesday by correctly spelling “chevalet.” In Round 3 on Wednesday, he misspelled “dominium.”

Ryan, an eighth-grader at Paul J. Gelinas Junior High School in the Three Village school district, was sponsored by Hofstra University. Earlier this year, he won the 2018 Hofstra Long Island Regional Scripps Spelling Bee.

In the national bee last year, Ryan finished in a tie for 41st place. — Robert Brodsky

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.