When Nick Gellerman got the chance to be North Dakota's spelling champion, he didn't let it slip away.

In a competition in which it is common for the final two contestants to battle it out for several rounds, getting more than one chance to win, on Friday, Nick jumped at his first opportunity to win the state spelling bee.

The 13-year-old home-schooled student correctly spelled "propinquity," a word that means nearness in time or place, to take the title in the eighth round of Friday's oral spelldown.

"My mom has always said I'm a naturally good speller," he said. "I never thought it would really happen."

Nick finished in a tie for fifth at last year's state bee. He said the experience helped calm his nerves the second time around. His mother, Carla, said spelling also is in the family genes - Nick's older sister Katrina also was a two-year finalist at the state bee.

Nick will compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., May 26-31.

Carter Aus, a 14-year-old Fargo eighth-grader, finished second out of the 25 contestants who advanced to the state spelldown. A total of 98 students from 50 of North Dakota's 53 counties competed on a written test earlier Friday to see who advanced.

More than half of the 25 finalists were eliminated in the first two rounds of the spelldown. By Round 5, only five contestants remained, and West Fargo 14-year-old Jordan Degerness had a chance to win when he was the only one of the five to correctly spell a word.

Under the rules of the competition, he needed to spell one more word correctly to win, and he misspelled "avifauna" by one letter, spelling it "avefauna." The word refers to birds in a specific region or period.

The North Dakota Council of Educational Leaders is the main sponsor of the state bee. Other sponsors are the North Dakota Newspaper Association, North Dakota Masonic Foundation, North Dakota Association of County Superintendents and the Miracle Ear Center of Bismarck.