For three years, Marshall Winchester of Waxhaw, has gone head-to-head with the best eighth-grade-and-under spellers the Charlotte region can muster. For three years, the home-schooled eighth grader, 13, has outlasted others in the Charlotte Observer Regional Spelling Bee.

On Thursday, Feb. 17, he did it by correctly spelling a total of 17 words in the 51st annual Observer bee, held at Spirit Square's McGlohon Theatre. Twenty-nine spellers representing 15 counties competed.

Marshall will represent The Observer's region in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. May 31-June 2. In last year's national bee, he finished fourth out of 264 spellers.

On Thursday, he confidently spelled every word. He was deliberately cautious, asking for definition, language of origin, and use in a sentence before beginning to spell.

His chance to repeat as regional champion came in the 16th round. After he correctly spelled "domiciliated," Tristan Jenkins, 8th-grader at Northwest Cabarrus Middle School in Concord, misspelled "anemology." Marshall then clinched it with "hibernal," meaning "of or relating to winter."

In this year's bee, three students shared a third-place finish: Kadie Britt, an 8th-grader at East Union Middle School in Marshville, N.C.; Sarah Lancaster, an 8th-grader at York Junior High School in York, S.C.; and Meredith Frazier, an 8th-grader at Cannon School in Concord.

Marshall, a member of the Charlotte Home Educators Association's MathCounts team, has played violin and piano for seven years. He plays as a violinist for the Charlotte Symphony Junior Youth Orchestra.