Jeremy Spence, of Bristol-Warren, spells while others watch during last night’s annual Rhode Island Spelling Bee Championship, which was held at Lincoln Middle School.

The Providence Journal / Ruben W. Perez

LINCOLN — For someone who had just won the state spelling bee, Ashley Peltier was a picture of composure. The seventh-grader from Exeter-West Greenwich Junior High School stood with her mom and dad, brushing off opportunities to embellish what she had done.

Had she practiced or studied?

“No.”

Did she have a secret?

“No,” she said. “I was just guessing.”

Peltier’s guessing carried her through round after round in last night’s annual Rhode Island Spelling Bee Championship, ultimately pitting her against Kevin Cournoyer, an eighth grader at Good Shepherd Regional Catholic School, in Woonsocket.

After the somewhat relaxed opening rounds, in which the field of 26 students was gradually pared down, the back-and-forth rounds between Peltier and Cournoyer were tense. Each had chances to win, spelling correctly in a round in which the other did not, only to falter on the championship word they needed to spell correctly to win.

But in the eighth round between the two, Peltier correctly spelled bismarck, a German word for a raised doughnut filled with jelly or jam. Cournoyer then stumbled on panophobia, a medical term for a non-specific fear, giving Peltier another shot at a championship word.

The word was exuviate, which refers to the way some animals routinely shed their skin.

She quickly spelled it correctly, and when one of the judges told her she was correct, there was a long applause.

As the winner, the 12-year-old, of West Greenwich, will represent Rhode Island in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, May 29-30 in Washington, D.C.

“It’s unbelievable,” said her mom, Karen Peltier, who noted that her daughter was in Florida recently for national cheerleading championships.

Ashley was ready with a thoughtful answer when asked what it was like to have the two experiences back to back.

“They’re both really unexpected and they’re both really exciting,” she said.

More than 100 people sat in the auditorium of Lincoln Middle School, sometimes marveling and chuckling at the earnestness of the students, who are in grades 4 through 8, as they attempted to spell the words. At times, their attempts were filled with multiple ums, ahs and pauses. At other times, students started spelling and then started over, though in doing so, the rules required them to use the same letters in the same order they had started with. In one change from the traditional spelling bee rules, the students were not required to say the word before and after spelling it, though many did.

The bee was sponsored by The Valley Breeze, a weekly newspaper, with help from Citizens Bank and the Utility Contractors Association of Rhode Island.

Valley Breeze Publisher Thomas V. Ward expressed condolences for Cournoyer, who was one of five finalists in last year’s state championship.

The state bee was the first for Ashley, though she has been participating in school spelling bees since fourth grade, her mom said.

The students came from as far as Block Island and represented most of the communities in the state. There were also some students from private schools — Cournoyer being one — as well as one home-schooled student.

For her efforts, Ashley received a glass trophy, though Ward said she will be receiving a nicer trophy, which was back-ordered and did not arrive in time for last night’s contest.

Ward was one of three judges, the others being Donna Morelle, school superintendent in Cumberland, and Gina Myre, a branch manager with Citizens Bank.

redgar@projo.com