COEUR d'ALENE - Conquering potential pitfalls like femininity and terrapin, the winning word in the 12th and final round of the North Idaho Regional Spelling Bee seemed perfectly fitting.

And once Tricia McCullough nailed it, there was a pop, and the Canfield Middle School eighth grader was showered in colorful confetti.

"It was exciting," McCullough said, after the streamers rained down on her for being the last speller standing. "I was hoping to win."

A terrapin is a North American turtle, but the winning word was precocious - a word McCullough was fairly certain she knew right when the panel challenged her with it.

"I thought so," she said, smiling, on whether she knew she could spell it without needing to reflect too much.

A field of 44 spellers was whittled away during the three-hour contest - the 10th annual competition hosted by NIC and The Press that pits district champion spellers from fourth- through eighth-grade against one another.

Now, McCullough will head off to Washington D.C. to take part in the national spelling bee in May, one of the rewards of winning.

"I'm going to go to Washington," she said, as though it were Disneyland. "I don't have to pay for it."

Her family said it was nerve-wracking watching her compete through the 12 rounds. Listening to each word as their daughter spelled it was like sitting on pins and needles, her mother and father, Gwyn and David McCullough, said.

"I thought she got one wrong," David said of one word somewhere in the middle rounds.

But no.

And slowly but surely, the family watched until it was just McCullough and Rebekah Pinkerton in the last round.

After Pinkerton slipped on backstein, which is a German cheese, McCullough - who studied without a tutor into the wee hours of the morning at times - sealed it with precocious.

Precocious, by the way, is "manifesting at an early age some of the mental and physical characteristics usually associated with maturity," according to Webster's Dictionary.

"We're just really proud of her," Gwyn said.