Jake Smith, a 12-year-old from Highlands Ranch, won the 67th annual Colorado State Spelling Bee today, edging out more than 200 kids who participated in the event that drew many sympathetic and suspenseful "oohs and aaws" from relatives of the contestants.

Smith held up a gold trophy to the applause of the crowd at the Colorado Convention Center after correctly spelling "ultimogeniture," meaning a system of inheritance where the youngest son or daughter or collateral heir succeeds to the estate.

Smith said he relaxed as the contest progressed.

"I was praying and it ended up making me not nervous," he said.

When he was given his final word, he said he began to shake, "but that was just because I knew (the word) and I knew I was going to win."

Smith, a seventh-grader from Mountain Ridge Middle School, now heads to Washington D.C. to compete in the Scripps Howard National Bee on May 27 through June 1.

Saturday’s event, sponsored by the Rocky Mountain News, was nearly swept by Smith and his two brothers, Zack, 14, and Alec, 10, who earned fifth and fourth place respectively.

Second place went to Rachel Huerta, an eighth-grader who is home-schooled.

Jessica Ray, and eighth-grader from Challenge School, placed third in an event that almost lasted four hours.

"I’m just excited to have made it this far and I’m very glad that it’s over," Ray said.

In all, 288 students from schools across the state, except for Boulder, competed but only 36 survived the morning written exam to participate in the oral contest.

"We’ve got all afternoon," pronouncer Charley Samson told the contestants before the spelling began, encouraging them to take their time to think about words and "pronounce a word before you spell it."

That’s because contestants need to pronounce the word correctly to ensure they spell the word intended by the judges.

Nathan Murphy, an eighth-grader from Huron Middle School, became the first and only victim of that warning in round 8, when he pronounced "prejudiced" and then spelled it, instead of the intended "prejudice."

Murphy walked off the stage, shrugging his shoulders once, after the judges talked briefly and decided that although he had spelled "prejudiced" correctly, it wasn’t the word he was given.

Murphy’s exit, like that of many contestants, was followed by the applause and a unified sympathetic "aaw" from the crowd.

And like every contestant, his departure was preceded by the ding of a bell, marking a misspelled word.

"You have nothing to fear," Samson told spellers, announcing at one point that words would get tougher. "It’s just words."