Walnut Hills seventh-grader Sheridan Hennessy didn’t win the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday but she got a cool consolation prize – a shoutout from one of the entertainment world’s biggest stars.
With a name as cool as Sheridan Hennessy, there’ll be a musical about you soon enough. Eat ‘em up! https://t.co/7MFiYu6Yko
— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) May 30, 2019
Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator and star of the Broadway mega-hit “Hamilton,” tweeted encouragement to the 13-year-old, saying: “With a name as cool as Sheridan Hennessy, there’ll be a musical about you soon enough. Eat ‘em up!”
Miranda was responding to a @ScrippsBee tweet that mentioned that Hennessy was a fan of musicals – especially “Hamilton” and “Dear Evan Hansen.”
Hennessy made it to Thursday's finals along with 13-year-old Sebastian Castilla, an eighth-grader at Schilling School for Gifted Children in Cincinnati, but neither reached the primetime round on ESPN Thursday night.
Hennessy was eliminated in the second finals round when she misspelled "terebinthinate," starting the word "tera …" Terebinthinate means “relating to, containing, or resembling turpentine (as in odor),” according to the official Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
Sebastian Castilla
Castilla was eliminated in the third finals round when he missed on “koftgari,” replacing the “o” with an “a.” Koftgari means “Indian damascene work in which steel is inlaid with gold,” according to Merriam-Webster.
Four other Cincinnati-area spellers passed were eliminated on Wednesday. They included:
• Tyler Turnpaugh, St. Pius X School, Edgewood, Kentucky
• Noah Paticoff, Symmes Elementary School, Loveland, Ohio
• Kolton Manuel, Salem Township Elementary School, Morrow, Ohio
• Henry Campbell, Highlands Middle School in Fort Thomas, Kentucky.
The Spelling Bee finals made history Thursday night when the judges gave up trying to stump the last eight spellers and declared all of them champions.
MORE: Meet the six spellers from the Tri-State.
